Awaiting our coming, they stood in the full
marching order of the regulations, packs light, forks and spoons in
their putties, and all little luxuries which we still dared to carry
flung away. They had been holding the place for seven days, and were
now going back somewhere for a rest.

"Is this the firing-line?" asked Stoner.

"Yes, sonny," came the answer in a voice which seemed to be full of
weariness.

"Quiet here?" Mervin enquired, a note of awe in his voice.

"Naethin' doin'," said a fresh voice that reminded me forcibly of
Glasgow and the Cowcaddens. "It's a gey soft job here."

"No casualties?"

"Yin or twa stuck their heads o'er the parapet when they shouldn't and
they copped it," said Glasgow, "but barrin' that 'twas quiet."

In the traverse where I was planted I dropped into Ireland; heaps of
it. There was the brogue that could be cut with a knife, and the
humour that survived Mons and the Marne, and the kindliness that
sprang from the cabins of Corrymeela and the moors of Derrynane.

"Irish?" I asked. (p. 084)

"Sure," was the answer. "We're everywhere. Ye'll find us in a Gurkha
regiment if you scratch the beggars' skins. Ye're not Irish!"

"I am," I answered.

"Then you've lost your brogue on the boat that took ye over," somebody
said. "Are ye dry?"

I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I sat down on the banquette. "Is
there something to drink?" I queried.

"There's a drop of cold tay, me boy," the man near me replied.
"Where's yer mess-tin, Mike?"

A tin was handed to me, and I drank greedily of the cold black tea.
The man Mike gave some useful hints on trench work.

"It's the Saxons that's across the road," he said, pointing to the
enemy's lines which were very silent. I had not heard a bullet whistle
over since I entered the trench. On the left was an interesting rifle
and machine gun fire all the time. "They're quiet fellows, the Saxons,
they don't want to fight any more than we do, so there's a kind of
understanding between us. Don't fire at us and we'll not fire at you.
There's a good dug-out there," he continued, pointing to a dark (p. 085)
hole in the parados (the rear wall of the trench), "and ye'll find a
pot of jam and half a loaf in the corner. There's also a water jar
half full."

"Where do you get water?"

"Nearly a mile away the pump is," he answered. "Ye've to cross the
fields to get it."

"A safe road?" asked Ston