nemy knows all about it,
and does likewise. Each morning General Headquarters of each side
finds upon its breakfast-table a concise summary of the movements of
all hostile troops, the disposition of railway rolling-stock--yea,
even aeroplane photographs of it all. What could Napoleon himself have
done under the circumstances? One is inclined to suspect that that
volcanic megalomaniac would have perished of spontaneous combustion of
the brain.

However, trench life has its alleviations. There is The Day's Work,
for instance. Each of us has his own particular "stunt," in which he
takes that personal and rather egotistical pride which only increasing
proficiency can bestow.

The happiest--or at least, the busiest--people just now are the
"Specialists." If you are engaged in ordinary Company work, your
energies are limited to keeping watch, dodging shells, and improving
trenches. But if you are what is invidiously termed an "employed" man,
life is full of variety.

Do you observe that young officer sitting on a ration-box at his
dug-out door, with his head tied up in a bandage? That is Second
Lieutenant Lochgair, whom I hope to make better known to you in time.
He is a chieftain of high renown in his own inaccessible but extensive
fastness; but out here, where every man stands on his own legs, and
not his grandfather's, he is known simply as "Othello." This is due to
the fact that Major Kemp once likened him to the earnest young actor
of tradition, who blacked himself all over to ensure proficiency in
the playing of that part. For he is above all things an enthusiast in
his profession. Last night he volunteered to go out and "listen" for a
suspected mine some fifty yards from the German trenches. He set out
as soon as darkness fell, taking with him a biscuit-tin full of water.
A circular from Headquarters--one of those circulars which no one but
Othello would have treated with proper reverence--had suggested this
device. The idea was that, since liquids convey sound better than air,
the listener should place his tin of water on the ground, lie down
beside it, immerse one ear therein, and so draw secrets from the
earth. Othello failed to locate the mine, but kept his head in the
biscuit-tin long enough to contract a severe attack of earache.

But he is not discouraged. At present he is meditating a design for
painting himself grass-green and climbing a tree--thence to take a
comprehensive and unobserved survey of the en