man had spotted in some shelled house or fallen farm-building a beam,
plank, door, or something else wooden and burnable, that he couldn't
carry without assistance, or that he couldn't stop to bring away at the
time. It must be fetched, for fire we must have. It might be only a few
score yards away measured by distance, but an hour measured by
time--"thou art so near and yet so far" sort of thing. Fetchers might
get hit at any moment, and had to creep and wriggle very cautiously over
open ground all the way. By some strange twist of mental association,
whenever I was a fetcher in these circumstances I found myself mentally
quoting Longfellow's line in "Hiawatha"--"He is gathering in his
firewood"!

[Illustration: THE WOODCUTTER'S HUT.]

Our champion at the game was a Private Hyatt--quite a youngster, but
of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The
Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an
expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood
in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective,
and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one
occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as
he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising
from the brick-work surrounding him, which showed that the enemy's
snipers had spotted him, and we shouted to him from the trench to "keep
down." He took refuge behind the wall of the doorway, and lay there
three-quarters of an hour, and then returned, bringing with him the much
prized plank of which he had gone in search, and which, when chopped up,
supplied our section with sufficient firewood for a whole day and night.
In the sketch it will be observed he is reading a letter. This he had
received just after the above incident, and sat down on his valise quite