blue sky, with the larks singing, quite
regardless of the War.

"Communication trench," explains the guide.

We tramp along this sunken lane for the best part of a mile. It winds
a good deal. Every hundred yards or so comes a great promontory of
sandbags, necessitating four right-angle turns. Once we pass under the
shadow of trees, and apple-blossom flutters down upon our upturned
faces. We are walking through an orchard. Despite the efforts of ten
million armed men, brown old Mother Earth has made it plain that
seedtime and harvest shall still prevail.

Now we are crossing a stream, which cuts the trench at right angles.
The stream is spanned by a structure of planks--labelled, it is hardly
necessary to say, LONDON BRIDGE. The side-street, so to speak, by
which the stream runs away, is called JOCK'S JOY. We ask why?

"It's the place where the Highlanders wash their knees," is the
explanation.

Presently we arrive at PICCADILLY CIRCUS, a muddy excavation in the
earth, from which several passages branch. These thoroughfares are
not all labelled with strict regard for London geography. We note THE
HAYMARKET, also PICCADILLY; but ARTILLERY LANE seems out of place,
somehow. On the site, too, of the Criterion, we observe a subterranean
cavern containing three recumbent figures, snoring lustily. This bears
the sign CYCLISTS' REST.

We, however, take the turning marked SHAFTESBURY AVENUE, and
after passing (quite wrongly, don't you think?) through TRAFALGAR
SQUARE--six feet by eight--find ourselves in the actual firing trench.

It is an unexpectedly spacious place. We, who have spent the winter
constructing slits in the ground two feet wide, feel quite lost in
this roomy thoroughfare. For a thoroughfare it is, with little toy
houses on either side. They are hewn out of the solid earth, lined
with planks, painted, furnished, and decorated. These are, so to
speak, permanent trenches, which have been occupied for more than six
months.

Observe this eligible residence on your left. It has a little door,
nearly six feet high, and a real glass window, with a little curtain.
Inside, there is a bunk, six feet long, together with an ingenious
folding washhand-stand, of the nautical variety, and a flap-table.
The walls, which are painted pale green, are decorated with elegant
extracts from the "Sketch" and "La Vie Parisienne." Outside, the name
of the villa is painted up. It is in Welsh--that notorious railway
station in Ang