on the parapet and kicking viciously towards the advancing
Huns. The enormous mass of soil thus propelled not only crushed the
hated foe but effectually buried him. However, that is by the way. We
are digressing far from the Sapper and the machine-gun officer who
stood by a derelict tank in the damp mist of an October dawn and
cogitated on the direction of their particular piece of front line.

"It is amazing," said a voice behind them, "that man can have descended
to such a state of congenital idiocy as to do all this to an
inoffensive carrot field."

The Brigade-Major, followed by the Brigadier, joined the two officers.
Behind them the signal officer plucked France from his face. And then
of a sudden five officers disappeared. A droning roar rose with
extreme rapidity to that pitch of loudness that denotes undesirable
closeness; a mass of black fumes and flying mud shot up twenty odd
yards away; a flight of cockchafers seemed to pass into the distance as
the jagged fragments whizzed overhead--and five faces appeared as
suddenly from the ground. Holes have their uses at times.

"This sunken road is always hairy," remarked the signal officer--known
to his intimates as Sigs--giving the General a hand-up from his
particular lair. "It were unwise to linger, sir."

"Another quarter-mile and we hit Essex Trench," remarked the
Brigade-Major. "Sally's head-quarters are there." The five officers
passed on, squelching loudly, and once again peace and silence reigned
in the sunken road. . . .

And now we come to the principal actors in the drama. Crowded in Essex
Trench, damp with mist, were the men of the South Loamshires. A few
were scribbling notes, and an all-pervading smell of frying bacon
permeated the air. One or two, wrapped in great-coats, with a
mackintosh sheet over them, still slept peacefully--but the whole
regiment was stirring into life. The morning of the day had come. To
many it was a new experience; to others it was stale--going over the
top. But, new or old, not a man but realised that by evening the roll
of the regiment would have many gaps; new or old, not a man but
realised that his name might be one of those gaps. Just the luck of
the game; perhaps nothing, perhaps a Blighty, perhaps . . .

It is well without doubt that the lower the intelligence the less the
imagination. To ninety per cent. of these men the situation lost much
of its edge; to the remaining ten the edge was sharpened