e deep in bits--to the Infantry
Headquarters, an' the F.O. goes inside. After a bit 'e comes out an'
tells me to come on wi' him up to the Observation Post. This was about
eight ac emma [A.M.], an' just gettin' light enough to see. You know
what that Observin' Post of ours is. The F.O. 'as a fond de-looshun
that the Germs can't see you when you leave the support trench an'
dodge up the wreckage of that hedge to the old house; but I 'ave my own
opinions about it. Anyway I've never been up yet without a most
un-natural lot o' bullets chippin' twigs off the hedge an' smackin'
into the ditch. But we got into the house all right an' I unslings my
Telephone--Portable--D Mark III., an' connects up with the Battery
while the F. O. crawls up into the top storey. 'E hadn't been there
three minutes when smack . . . smack, I hears two bullets hit the tiles
or the walls. The F. O. comes down again in about ten minutes an' has
a talk to the Major at the Battery. He reports fairly quiet except
some Germ Pip-Squeak shells droppin' out on our right, an' a good deal
o' sniping rifle fire between the trenches in front of us. As a
general thing I've no serious objection to the trenches snipin' each
other, if only the Germs 'ud aim more careful. But mostly they aims
shockin' an' anything that comes high for our trench just has the right
elevation for our post. There's a broken window on the ground floor
too, lookin' out of the room we uses straight at the Boshies, an' the
F.O. wouldn't have me block this up at no price. "Concealment," sez
he, "is better than protection. An' if they see that window sandbagged
up it's a straight tip to them this is a Post of some sort, an' a
hearty invitation to them to plunk a shell or two in on us." Maybe 'e
was right, but you can't well conceal a whole house or even the four
walls o' one, so I should 'ave voted for the protection myself.
Anyhow, 'e said I could build a barricade at the foot o' the stairs,
where I'd hear him call 'is orders down, an' I'd be behind some cover.
This motion was seconded by a bullet comin' in the window an' puttin' a
hole in the eye o' a life-size enlargement photo of an old lady in a
poke-bonnet hangin' on the wall opposite. The row of the splinterin'
glass made me think a Jack Johnson had arrived an' I didn't waste time
gettin' to work on my barricade. I got a arm-chair an' the half of a
sofa an' a broken-legged table, an' made that the foundation; an' up
agai