ne hand and the aid post on the other was
Piccadilly, and that it constituted the reserve line of the position.

In other words, it was not merely a communication trench, but was
recessed and traversed like a fire trench. In very fact, it was a fire
trench--the third of the system. In front was the support line, known as
Pall Mall, and in front of that, again, the firing line, whither later
the Sapper proposed to wend his way. He wanted to gaze on "the rum jar
reputed to be filled with explosive." But in the meantime there was the
question of the pump--the ever-present question which is associated with
all pumps. To work or not to work, and the answer is generally in the
negative.

He turned to the left down Piccadilly, wondering what particular ailment
had attacked this specimen of the breed, and had caused the Adjutant of
the battalion to write winged words anent it. The aspect of the trench
had changed; no longer did the red, white, and blue of the tangled wild
flowers meet over his head, but grey and drab the sandbag walls rose on
each side of him. Occasionally the mouth of a dug-out yawned in the
front of the trench, a dark passage cased in with timber, sloping steeply
down to the cave below. Voices, and sometimes snores, came drowsily up
from the bottom, where odd bunches of the South Loamshires for a space
existed beautifully.

"Hullo, old man--how's life?" He rounded a traverse to find an officer
of the battalion lathering his chin for his morning shave. A cracked
mirror was scotched up between two sandbags, and a small indiarubber
basin leaked stealthily on the firing step.

"So-so! That bally pump of yours won't work again, or so the cook says.
Jenkins, pass the word along for Smithson. He is the cook, and will tell
you the whole sordid story."

"Quiet night?" The Sapper sat down and refilled his pipe.

"Fairly. They caught one of our fellows in the entrance to his dug-out
up in the front line with an aerial dart about seven o'clock. Landed
just at the entrance. Blew the top of his head off. Good boy, too--just
been given his stripe. Oh, Smithson!--tell the Engineer officer about
that pump. Confound!--I've shaved a mosquito bite!"

The cook--a veteran of many years--looked at the placidly smoking Sapper
and cleared his throat. On any subject he was an artist; on pumps and
the deficiencies of Ally Sloper's Cavalry--as the A.S.C. is vulgarly
known--he was a genius.

"Well, sir, it'