f death. It is not good for the
Hun to take liberties with a tank, even if it is temporarily
_hors-de-combat_.

A man limping wearily, his head bandaged, his face unshaved, his khaki
coated with half-dry mud, plodded heavily towards them.

"Can you tell me the way to the dressing-station, sir?" He had stopped
and, swaying slightly, stood in front of the two officers.

"Straight on, lad. You'll find it somewhere back there." The
machine-gun officer pointed vaguely into the mist. "About half a mile."

"You ain't got a drop of water, 'ave you, sir? The water party got
lost last night, and we've only had about a teacupful this last
twenty-four hours."

But when going up to visit the trenches water-bottles are a useless
encumbrance, and, with a tired sigh, the wounded Tommy resumed his
thirsty way in the direction of the dressing-station.

"Cooked, poor devil," remarked the Sapper, as he disappeared. "Pretty
nearly finished."

"But he'll be his mother's own bright boy again when he gets his nose
inside that aid post. We go left here, I think."

They paused for a moment to get their bearings--a matter of some
importance and no little difficulty.

It may seem an easy thing to walk up to the trenches. One goes on, and
ultimately one arrives, the casual reader will surmise. And with luck
the casual reader will be right. But there are certain small points
which may have escaped his ken and which render the task of reaching
the front line a trifle harder than walking to the club for lunch.

In the first place the aspect of the ground is not of that cheerful and
varied type which has inspired so many gifted landscape painters. No
trees and little rivers, no cottages and flowering paths delight one's
eye. It is impossible to say: "Take the turn to the left after passing
the cactus bush, and keep straight on till you come to the asparagus
bed; and then you'll see the front trench on your right."

The local cactus bush or its equivalent is hurled into space twice
daily, thereby largely interfering with its use as a landmark. The
local asparagus bed or its equivalent differs only from the remainder
of the ground in the fact that a mule passed peacefully away on it some
weeks previously. And one day even that difference vanished. The mule
passed away again--in small fragments.

Even the front trenches where they exist have a variegated career. At
certain periods quite a large proportion of them are in the