very meek. He sent over very few "minnies" or rifle grenades, and
there was hardly any shelling of the sector.

Directly after the raid, we who were in the party had a couple of
days "on our own" at the little village of Bully-Grenay, less than
three miles behind the lines. This is directly opposite Lens, the
better known town which figures so often in the dispatches.

Bully-Grenay had been a place of perhaps one thousand people. It
had been fought over and through and around early in the war, and
was pretty well battered up. There were a few houses left unhit and
the town hall and several shops. The rest of the place was ruins,
but about two hundred of the inhabitants still stuck to their old
homes. For some reason the Germans did not shell Bully-Grenay, that
is, not often. Once in a while they would lob one in just to let
the people know they were not forgotten.

There was a suspicion that there were spies in the town and that
that accounted for the Germans laying off, but whatever was the
cause the place was safer than most villages so near the lines.

Those two days in repose at Bully-Grenay were a good deal of a
farce. We were entirely "on our own", it is true, no parade, no
duty of any kind--but the quarters--oof! We were billeted in the
cellars of the battered-down houses. They weren't shell-proof. That
didn't matter much, as there wasn't any shelling, but there might
have been. The cellars were dangerous enough without, what with
tottering walls and overhanging chunks of masonry.

Moreover they were a long way from waterproof. Imagine trying to