farther, sir," he said, addressing the
staff-officer who was my companion. "The Boches are shelling the road
just ahead pretty heavily this morning. They got a lorry a few minutes
ago and I've had orders to stop traffic until things quiet down a
bit."

"I'm afraid we'll have to take to the mud," said my cicerone
resignedly. "And after last night's rain it will be beastly going.

"And don't forget your helmet and gas-mask," he called, as I stepped
from the car into a foot of oozy mire.

"Will we need them?" I asked, for the inverted wash-basin which the
British dignify by the name of helmet is the most uncomfortable form
of headgear ever devised by man.

"It's orders," he answered. "No one is supposed to go into the
trenches without mask and helmet. And there's never any telling when
we may need them. No use in taking chances."

Taking off my leather coat, which was too heavy for walking, I
attempted to toss it into the car, but the wind caught it and carried
it into the mud, in which it disappeared as quickly and completely as
though I had dropped it in a lake. Leaving the comparative hardness of
the road, we started to make our way to the mouth of a communication
trench through what had evidently once been a field of sugar-beets--and
instantly sank to our knees in mire that seemed to be a mixture of
molasses, glue, and porridge. It seemed as though some subterranean
monster had seized my feet with its tentacles and was trying to drag me
down. It was perhaps half a mile to the communication trench and it
took us half an hour of the hardest walking I have ever had to reach
it. It had walls of slippery clay and a corduroyed bottom, but the
corduroy was hidden beneath the mud left by thousands of feet.
Telephone-wires, differentiated by tags of colored tape, ran down the
sides. Shortly we came upon a working party of Highlanders who were
repairing the trench-wall. The wars of the Middle Ages could have seen
no more strangely costumed fighting men. Above their half-puttees
showed the brilliantly plaided tops of their stockings. Their kilts of
green and blue tartan were protected by khaki aprons. Each man wore one
of the recently issued jerkins, a sleeveless and shapeless coat of
rough-tanned sheepskin such as was probably worn, in centuries past, by
the English bowmen. On their heads were the "tin pot" helmets such as
we were wearing, and in leather cases at their belts they carried
broad-bladed and extremely vicious-