contact with a tremendous bang. It is
not as dangerous as it sounds, but bad enough.

The "minnie" is about the size of a two-gallon kerosene can, and
comes somersaulting over in a high arc and is concentrated death
and destruction when it lands. It has one virtue--you can see it
coming and dodge, and at night it most considerately leaves a trail
of sparks.

The Boche served us full portions of all three of these man-killers
in the Warren and kept us ducking in and out pretty much all the
time, night and day.

I was lucky enough after the first day to be put on sappers' duty.
The Sappers, or Engineers, are the men whose duty it is to run
mines under No Man's Land and plant huge quantities of explosives.
There was a great amount of mining going on all the time at Vimy
Ridge from both sides.

Sometimes Fritz would run a sap out reasonably near the surface,
and we would counter with one lower down. Then he'd go us one
better and go still deeper. Some of the mines went down and under
hundreds of feet. The result of all this was that on our side at
least, the Sappers were under-manned and a good many infantry were
drafted into that service.

I had charge of a gang and had to fill sandbags with the earth
removed from the end of the sap and get it out and pile the bags on
the parapets. We were well out toward the German lines and deep
under the hill when we heard them digging below us. An engineer
officer came in and listened for an hour and decided that they were
getting in explosives and that it was up to us to beat them to it.
Digging stopped at once and we began rushing in H.E. in fifty-pound
boxes. I was ordered back into supports with my section.

Right here I began to have luck. Just see how this worked out.
First a rushing party was organized whose duty it was to rush the
crater made by the mine explosion and occupy it before the Germans
got there. Sixty men were selected, a few from each company, and
placed where they were supposedly safe, but where they could get up
fast. This is the most dangerous duty an infantryman has to do,
because both sides after a mine explosion shower in fifty-seven
varieties of sudden death, including a perfect rain of machine-gun
bullets. The chances of coming out of a rushing party with a whole
hide are about one in five.

Well, for a wonder, I didn't get drawn for this one, and I breathed
one long, deep sigh of relief, put my hand inside my tunic and
patted Dinky on the back.