and out into the air, shooting out of our mud hovel to the surface like
snakes when you pour water down their holes.

Time now 3 a.m. No sleep; rain, water, _plus_ smoke. A board meeting
held immediately decides to give up sleep and dug-outs for that night. A
motion to try and construct a chimney with an entrenching tool is
defeated by five votes to one ... dawn is breaking--my first night in
trenches comes to an end.




CHAPTER IV

MORE MUD--RAIN AND BULLETS--A BIT OF
CAKE--"WIND UP"--NIGHT ROUNDS


The rose-pink sky fades off above to blue,
The morning star alone proclaims the dawn.
The empty tins and barbed wire bathed in dew
Emerge, and then another day is born.

I wrote that "poem" in those--trenches, so you can see the sort of state
to which I was reduced.

Well, my first trench night was over; the dawn had broken--everything
else left to break had been seen to by the artillery, which started off
generally at about eight. And what a fearful long day it seemed, that
first one! As soon as it was light I began scrambling about, and having