. "It's always working-parties; at
night and at day. Sweeping gutters and picking papers and bits of stew
from the street. Is it quiet here?"

"Very quiet," I answered. "We've only had five killed and nine wounded
in six days. How is your regiment getting along?"

"Oh, not so bad," said the man; "some go west at times, but it's what
one has to expect out here."

The working party were edging off, and some of the men were clambering
over the parapet.

"Hi! Ginger!" someone said in a loud whisper, "Ginger Weeson; (p. 295)
come along at once!"

The man on the banquette got to his feet, put out his cigarette and
placed the fag-end in his cartridge pouch. He would smoke this when he
returned, on the neutral ground between the lines a lighted cigarette
would mean death to the smoker. I gave Ginger Weeson a leg over the
parapet and handed him his spade when he got to the other side. My
hour on sentry-go was now up and I went into my dug-out and was
immediately asleep.

I was called again at one, three-quarters of an hour later.

"What's up?" I asked the corporal who wakened me.

"Oh, there's a party going down to the rear for rations," I was told.
"So you've got to take up sentry-go till stand-to; that'll be for an
hour or so. You're better out in the air now for its beginning to
stink everywhere, but the dug-out is the worst place of all."

So saying, the corporal entered the dug-out and stretched himself on
the floor; he was going to have a sleep despite his mean opinion of
the shelter.

The stench gathers itself in the early morning, in that chill (p. 296)
hour which precedes the dawn one can almost see the smell ooze from
the earth of the firing line. It is penetrating, sharp, and well-nigh
tangible, the odour of herbs, flowers, and the dawn mixed with the
stench of rotting meat and of the dead. You can taste it as it enters
your mouth and nostrils, it comes in slowly, you feel it crawl up your
nose and sink with a nauseous slowness down the back of the throat
through the windpipe and into the stomach.

I leant my arms on the sandbags and looked across the field; I fancied
I could see men moving in the darkness, but when the star-shells went
up there was no sign of movement out by the web of barbed-wire
entanglements. The new sap with its bags of earth stretched out chalky
white towards the enemy; the sap was not more than three feet deep
yet, it afforded very little protection from fire. Suddenly r