all sorts of ways. At that he was constantly in danger.

I was assigned to Platoon 10 and found they were a good live bunch.
Corporal Wells was the best of the lot, and we became fast friends.
He helped me learn a lot of my new duties and the trench "lingo",
which is like a new language, especially to a Yank.

Wells started right in to make me feel at home and took me along
with two others of the new men down to our "apartments", a dug-out
built for about four, and housing ten.

My previous idea of a dug-out had been a fairly roomy sort of cave,
somewhat damp, but comparatively comfortable. Well, this hole was
about four and a half feet high--you had to get in doubled up on
your hands and knees--about five by six feet on the sides, and
there was no floor, just muck. There was some sodden, dirty straw
and a lot of old moldy sandbags. Seven men and their equipment were
packed in here, and we made ten.

There was a charcoal brazier going in the middle with two or three
mess tins of char boiling away. Everybody was smoking, and the
place stunk to high heaven, or it would have if there hadn't been a
bit of burlap over the door.

I crowded up into a corner with my back against the mud wall and my
knees under my chin. The men didn't seem overglad to see us, and
groused a good deal about the extra crowding. They regarded me with
extra disfavor because I was a lance corporal, and they disapproved
of any young whipper-snapper just out from Blighty with no trench
experience pitchforked in with even a slight superior rank. I had