nches, but a party of recruits came in
just at that time; one was hit on the road half a mile back. He, poor
fellow! was taken to hospital, and will probably be in England within
ten days of leaving it. So I saw them away, and started to follow them
up. I then dived down into a ditch and staggered along, my boots
covered with foul mud and water, whilst a sniper commenced to try and
take the trench I was in; enfilade it, they call it. Well, I went
farther on up the ditch, getting worse and worse into the mire right
over my knees. The mud actually worked its way through my leggings to
my skin. I wandered on, heavy sniping hissing over my head or into the
parapet, covering me with clay occasionally. Of course, everyone who
lives in these particular trenches has wet feet day and night. Having
been round and talked to everybody and done my best to cheer them up,
I met and had a word with Capt. Rodney. He remarked: "Do not stay
where you are, sir, I beg of you, for my servant was shot and killed
just on that spot, and another man was wounded by the same bullet." It
went clean through a book that the unfortunate man was reading. So I
discreetly toddled, or rather waded, home about midnight. This morning
one of my men was shot through the lungs, not far from our room, and
he died at once. This just shows you what a time we go through here,
always having to keep our eyes open! Poor Capt. Whelan was killed, I
saw in yesterday's paper. He had been lent to the Royal Irish
Regiment. Well, good-bye....

IN TRENCHES.
_December 19th, 1914._

This morning your kind present of ginger cake, plum pudding, and
mittens, also soap, arrived, for all of which many thanks. You will be
interested to hear what was going on last night, which I did not like
to tell you at the time I was writing. We had been summoned in the
morning to receive the General's order for an attack on a trench by
the Rifle Brigade. The real attack, however, was to be made by someone
else on quite another part of the line. We were to demonstrate. Well,
if you ever heard Hell let loose, it was whilst I was writing that
letter. Probably over fifty guns took part in it, and the firing was
quite close overhead. It may have been 100 guns really--some very
heavy ones. Then about 10 miles of trenches were blazing away at the
Germans, and they were blazing back at us. Bullets were racing t