prone to superstitions. Relieved of all responsibility
and with most of their thinking done for them, they revert
surprisingly quick to a state of more or less savage mentality.
Perhaps it would be better to call the state childlike. At any rate
they accumulate a lot of fool superstitions and hang to them. The
height of folly and the superlative invitation to bad luck is
lighting three fags on one match. When that happens one of the
three is sure to click it soon.

As one out of any group of three anywhere stands a fair chance of
"getting his", fag or no fag, the thing is reasonably sure to work
out according to the popular belief. Most every man has his unlucky
day in the trenches. One of mine was Monday. The others were
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Practically every soldier carries some kind of mascot or charm. A
good many are crucifixes and religious tokens. Some are coins.
Corporal Wells had a sea shell with three little black spots on
it. He considered three his lucky number. Thirteen was mine. My
mascot was the aforesaid and much revered Dinky. Dinky was and is a
small black cat made of velvet. He's entirely flat except his head,
which is becomingly round with yellow glass eyes. I carried Dinky
inside my tunic always and felt safer with him there. He hangs at
the head of my bed now and I feel better with him there. I realize
perfectly that all this sounds like tommyrot, and that superstition
may be a relic of barbarism and ignorance. Never mind! Wellsie
sized the situation up one day when we were talking about this very
thing.

"Maybe my shell ayen't doin' me no good," says Wells. "Maybe Dinky
ayen't doin' you no good. But 'e ayen't doin' ye no 'arm. So 'ang
on to 'im."

I figure that if there's anything in war that "ayen't doin' ye no
'arm", it is pretty good policy to "'ang on to it."

It was Sunday the eighth day of October that the order came to move
into what was called the "O.G.I.", that is, the old German first
line. You will understand that this was the line the Boches had
occupied a few days before and out of which they had been driven in
the Big Push. In front of this trench was Eaucort Abbaye, which had
been razed with the aid of the tanks.

We had watched this battle from the rear from the slight elevation
of High Wood, and it had been a wonderful sight to see other men go
out over the top without having ourselves to think about. They had
poured out, wave after