I replied.

"When that shellin' was goin' on?"

"Yes."

"You're a cool beggar, you are!" said Bill. "I was warm here I tell
yer!"

"Have the Germans come this way?" I asked.

"Germans!" ejaculated Bill. "They come 'ere and me with ten rounds in
the magazine and one in the breech! They knows better!"

Stoner was awake when I returned to the dug-out by Headquarters.

"Up already?" I asked.

"Up! I've been up almost since you went away," he answered. "My! the
shells didn't half fly over here. And I thought you'd never get (p. 174)
back."

"That's due to lack of imagination," I told him. "What's for
breakfast?"

CHAPTER XIII (p. 175)

A NIGHT OF HORROR

'Tis only a dream in the trenches,
Told when the shadows creep,
Over the friendly sandbags
When men in the dug-outs sleep.
This is the tale of the trenches
Told when the shadows fall,
By little Hughie of Dooran,
Over from Donegal.

On the noon following the journey to the village I was sent back to
the Keep; that night our company went into the firing trench again. We
were all pleased to get there; any place was preferable to the block
of buildings in which we had lost so many of our boys. On the night
after our departure, two Engineers who were working at the Keep could
not find sleeping place in the dug-outs, and they slept on the spot
where I made my bed the first night I was there. In the early morning
a shell struck the wall behind them and the poor fellows were blown to
atoms.

For three days we stayed in the trenches, narrow, suffocating and damp
places, where parados and parapet almost touched and where it was (p. 176)
well-nigh impossible for two men to pass. Food was not plentiful here,
all the time we lived on bully beef and biscuits; our tea ran short
and on the second day we had to drink water at our meals. From our
banquette it was almost impossible to see the enemy's position; the
growing grass well nigh hid their lines; occasionally by standing
tiptoed on the banquette we could catch a glimpse of white sandbags
looking for all the world like linen spread out to dry on the grass.
But the Germans did not forget that we were near, pipsqueaks, rifle
grenades, bombs and bullets came our way with aggravating persistence.
It was believed that the Prussians, spiteful beggars that they are,
occupied the position opposite. In these trenches the dug-outs were
few a