ppropriated by other troops, and
the officers had some difficulty in recovering their kits.

"I don't mind being kept in trenches for several weeks," remarked
their commander to the staff officer who received him when he
reported, "and I can put up with losing my sleeping-bag; but I do
object to having my last box of cigars looted by the blackguards who
took over our billets!"

The staff officer expressed sympathy, and the subject dropped. But
not many days later, while the battalion were still resting, their
commander was roused in the middle of the night from the profound
slumber which only the experience of many nights of anxious vigil can
induce, by the ominous message:--

"An orderly to see you, from General Headquarters, sir!"

The colonel rolled stoically out of bed, and commanded that the
orderly should be brought before him.

The man entered, carrying, not a despatch, but a package, which he
proffered with a salute.

"With the Commander-in-Chief's compliments, sir!" he announced.

The package was a box of cigars!

But that was before the days of "K(1)."

But the night is wearing on. It is half-past one--time to knock off
work. Tired men, returning from ration-drawing or sap-digging, throw
themselves down and fall dead asleep in a moment. Only the sentries,
with their elbows on the parapet, maintain their sleepless watch. From
behind the enemy's lines comes a deep boom--then another. The big guns
are waking up again, and have decided to commence their day's work by
speeding our empty ration-waggons upon their homeward way. Let them!
So long as they refrain from practising direct hits on our front-line
parapet, and disturbing our brief and hardly-earned repose, they may
fire where they please. The ration train is well able to look after
itself.

"A whiff o' shrapnel will dae nae harrm to thae strawberry-jam
pinchers!" observes Private Tosh bitterly, rolling into his dug-out.
By this opprobrious term he designates that distinguished body of men,
the Army Service Corps. A prolonged diet of plum-and-apple jam has
implanted in the breasts of the men in the trenches certain dark
and unworthy suspicions concerning the entire altruism of those
responsible for the distribution of the Army's rations.

* * * * *

It is close on daybreak, and the customary whispered order runs down
the stertorous trench:--

"Stand to arms!"

Straightway the parapets are lined with armed men;