We have one thing upon our side--youth.

"Most of our regular senior officers are gone, sir," remarked Colonel
Kemp one day to the Brigadier--"dead, or wounded, or promoted to other
commands; and I have something like twenty new subalterns. When you
subtract a centenarian like myself, the average age of our Battalion
Mess, including Company Commanders, works out at something under
twenty-three. But I am not exchanging any of them, thanks!"


III

Trench-life in Belgium is an entirely different proposition from
trench-life in France. The undulating country in which we now find
ourselves offers an infinite choice of unpleasant surroundings.

Down south, Vermelles way, the trenches stretch in a comparatively
straight line for miles, facing one another squarely, and giving
little opportunity for tactical enterprise. The infantry blaze and
sputter at one another in front; the guns roar behind; and that is all
there is to be said about it. But here, the line follows the curve of
each little hill. At one place you are in a salient, in a trench which
runs round the face of a bulging "knowe"--a tempting target for shells
of every kind. A few hundred yards farther north, or south, the ground
is much lower, and the trench-line runs back into a re-entrant,
seeking for a position which shall not be commanded from higher ground
in front.

The line is pierced at intervals by railway-cuttings, which have to be