always get entangled in the mud of that rather dreadful
place. By the way, when you have time, please send me a piece of
shaving soap. I have stuck to shaving steadily, and propose doing so
unless you want me to grow a beard! I was very much surprised when,
after seven days without being able to shave, to see my face come out
perfectly black all over! I thought I was fair, so apparently my
moustache is a fraud! Is it not funny?

IN TRENCHES.
_December 13th, 1914._

We marched out to the trenches with very little firing, and found that
the whole of them were more or less full of water. While visiting one
company last night about 5.45 a.m. I had to wade through water just
below the top of my leggings. What that means by remaining afterwards
in wet boots I leave you to judge. I managed to get mine changed at 11
a.m., as I had a dry pair of socks in my holsters, and put my feet
back into the wet boots. In one place which I have not yet walked
through, the water is actually up to the waist. One sergeant of the
Lincoln Regiment was left for us to dig out, as he was hopelessly
bogged when his regiment had to march away; whilst another man was
pulled out by main force and left his boots behind him, and after
walking a mile in bare feet was put into a cart. The enemy have had
the audacity to open on us with a machine gun, and spent last night
with it trying to shoot down my principal communication trench, so, as
I have more or less placed the gun, I am asking the artillery to fire
on it without delay. A curious way of spending the third Sunday in
Advent, shivering with cold in a dug-out, with lots of bullets humming
overhead, but not so many shells just at present. The men and officers
are having a bad time, but war is never pleasant.

_P.S._--The sequel to the maxim gun fire is that one of my men has
been knocked down and hit in the leg, in the arm, and back of the
head. The fact being that he was going for water, and finding the
ditch very dirty, foolishly jumped out, and was promptly knocked over
at once. The enemy is now shelling over our heads most cheerfully. One
wonders when all this will stop....

G.B.L.

IN TRENCHES.
_December 14th, 1914._

Here I am in my dripping dug-out, even