the parapet that they could not be seen
from without, even five yards away. These fortlets were pierced with a
foot-long slip for the muzzle of a machine gun, and were just big
enough to hold the gun and one gunner.

In the forward wall of the trenches were the openings of the shafts
which led to the front-line dugouts. The shafts are all of the same
pattern. They have open mouths about four feet high, and slant down
into the earth for about twenty feet at an angle of forty-five
degrees. At the bottom of the stairs which led down are the living
rooms and barracks which communicate with each other so that if a
shaft collapse the men below may still escape by another. The shafts
and living rooms are strongly propped and panelled with wood, and this
has led to the destruction of most of the few which survived our
bombardment. While they were needed as billets our men lived in them.
Then the wood was removed, and the dugout and shaft collapsed.

During the bombardment before an attack, the enemy kept below in his
dugouts. If one shaft were blown in by a shell, they passed to the
next. When the fire "lifted" to let the attack begin, they raced up
the stairs with their machine guns and had them in action within a
minute. Sometimes the fire was too heavy for this, for trench,
parapet, shafts, dugouts, wood, and fortlets, were pounded out of
existence, so that no man could say that a line had ever run there;
and in these cases the garrison was destroyed in the shelters. This
happened in several places, though all the enemy dugouts were kept
equipped with pioneer tools by which buried men could dig themselves
out.

The direction of the front-line trenches was so inclined with bends,
juts, and angles as to give flanking fire upon attackers.

At some little distance behind the front line (a hundred yards or so)
was a second fire line, wired like the first, though less elaborate
and generally without concrete fortlets. This second line was usually
as well sited for fire as the front line. There were many
communication trenches between the two lines. Half a mile behind the
second line was a third support line; and behind this, running along
the whole front, a mile or more away, was the prepared second main
position, which was in every way like the front line, with wire,
concrete fortlets, dugouts, and a difficult glacis for the attacker to
climb.

The enemy batteries were generally placed behind banks or lynchets
which gave g