uch it could be called--was not a
very trying experience. There was nothing to do except a little
improvement of the shelters. Their only duty was to "wait and see." It
was not cold, and they had their rations. The Subaltern dug, and slept,
and ate, and then dug again, and thus the day passed. Indeed, he even
began to write a long letter home in his notebook, but he lost the pages
almost as soon as they were written.

They were shelled twice during the day, but all one had to do was to lie
comfortably in one's "funk hole" and wait for the "hate" to die down.
After many experiences in the open, without a particle of cover, being
shelled in deep holes had few terrors.

"Of course," he said to himself, "if they get a direct hit on this hole
I'm done for, but otherwise I'm pretty safe."

Nevertheless, in spite of the holes, several men were carried away.

The greatest inconvenience to the place was the stench of decaying
horses. About twenty yards down the hill the horses belonging to a whole
Battery had been struck by a shell. About a dozen of them lay dead where
they had been standing. The story had been told of how one of the
Subalterns of the other Company had left his hole, rifle in hand, in the
middle of a bombardment, to put the wounded animals out of their agony.
He had succeeded in shooting them all, but on his way back had been
struck in the foot with a piece of shell casing. It was an heroic,
kindly act, typical of the brave man who did it. But it seemed a
pity....

It was, of course, impossible to bury the dead animals, and to drag them
further away was out of the question in the daylight. There was nothing
else to do but to sit tight and endure in silence.

Their second night in the trenches was merely a repetition of the first.
After a lively sunset fusillade had died down, the Germans lay quiet
until dawn. The German artillery were so regular in their habits that it
almost seemed as though they must be working by a printed programme,
which directed that at six o'clock precisely in the morning, every
battery was to fire off a certain number of rounds, absolutely
regardless of whatever targets they might have been offered, and, having
fired the requisite number of rounds, the battery was to lie quiet
until, say, eleven o'clock. Of course, the thing was ludicrous, but it
seemed to be the only explanation.

A mail was included in the rations. He himself drew blank, but the
Senior Subaltern was sent a box