For instance, we had just got back to the latter one night, at exactly
10.30, after seven consecutive days in the trenches of our most advanced
position, and were thinking that now we should get a few hours' quiet
repose--subject, of course, to the disturbance of shelling--when a
sudden order was given to fall in. We turned out, were numbered, "right
turned," and marched off, singing and whistling merrily. After
proceeding in this fashion for half a mile, word was passed down to form
Indian file, seven paces apart. We moved thus for about a quarter of a
mile, and then word was again passed down--"no smoking, whistling, or
talking." The night was pitch dark, foggy, and a drizzle was beating in
our faces.

We were now within range of the enemy's rifle fire and heard spent
bullets as they pinged and spluttered into the mud. We crossed a railway
line, and marched or crawled the best way we could along the ditch
parallel with it--truth to tell, cursing and swearing. We passed an old
signal station, now just a pile of bricks, with one side wall still
erect and one glass window intact. We had come to know well that wall
and that window and the strewn bricks around, for we had passed the spot
so often in our little excursions from trench to billet and billet to
trench. A little further along the whistle of the bullets grew louder
and more continuous--their sound something like the sound of soft
notes whistled by a boy. Machine guns--"motor bikes" in our
nomenclature--rattled our left and right, our position being that of
the far apex of a triangle, exposed to inflated fire all the way up.

Arriving within a few yards of the opening of the trench we were to
occupy in relief of the North Staffords, the first section of whom were
moving along the ditch, a star shell burst above as the searchlight was