re sitting in the garden of the general's headquarters, having a
picnic meal before going into the trenches. In spite of the wasps, which
attacked the sandwiches, it was a nice, quiet place in time of war.
No shell same crashing in our neighborhood (though we were well within
range of the enemy's guns), and the loudest noise was the drop of an
over-ripe apple in the orchard. Later on a shrill whistle signaled a
hostile airplane overhead, but it passed without throwing a bomb.

"You will have a moist time in some of the trenches," said the general
(whose boots were finely polished). "The rain has made them rather
damp... But you must get down as far as the mine craters. We're
expecting the Germans to fire one at any moment, and some of our
trenches are only six yards away from the enemy. It's an interesting
place."

The interest of it seemed to me too much of a good thing, and I uttered
a pious prayer that the enemy would not explode his beastly mine under
me. It makes such a mess of a man.

A staff captain came out with a report, which he read: "The sound of
picks has been heard close to our sap-head. The enemy will probably
explode their mine in a few hours."

"That's the place I was telling you about," said the general. "It's well
worth a visit... But you must make up your mind to get your feet wet."

As long as I could keep my head dry and firmly fixed to my shoulders, I
was ready to brave the perils of wet feet with any man.

It had been raining heavily for a day or two. I remember thinking that
in London--which seemed a long way off--people were going about under
umbrellas and looking glum when their clothes were splashed by passing
omnibuses. The women had their skirts tucked up and showed their pretty
ankles. (Those things used to happen in the far-off days of peace.) But
in the trenches, those that lay low, rain meant something different, and
hideously uncomfortable for men who lived in holes. Our soldiers,
who cursed the rain--as in the old days, "they swore terribly in
Flanders"--did not tuck their clothes up above their ankles. They took
off their trousers.

There was something ludicrous, yet pitiable, in the sight of those hefty
men coming back through the communication trenches with the tails of
their shirts flapping above their bare legs, which were plastered with a
yellowish mud. Shouldering their rifles or their spades, they trudged on
grimly through two feet of water, and the boots which they wor