on by the wind is fresh "over there." Don't, if you have a weak
stomach, ever turn up any earth; though there may not be rotting flesh,
other gases are imprisoned in the soil.) This night the wind was
strong, and the smell of warm blood mingled with the phosphorous odor
of high explosive, and there was that other sweet-sticky-sickly smell
that is the strongest scent of a recent battle-field. It was a vile,
unwholesome job, and we were glad that our time was limited to
three-quarters of an hour, when our artillery would re-open fire. I
got a fearful start on looking at my companion's face in the light of a
white star-shell; it might have belonged to one of the corpses lying
near, with the lips drawn back, the eyes fixed, and the complexion
ghastly. He replied to my signal that he was all right, but a nasty
suspicion crept into my mind--his teeth had chattered so much as to
make him unable to answer a question of mine just before we left the
trench, but one took no notice of a thing like that, for stage fright
was common enough to all of us before a job actually started. But
"could he be depended on?" was the fear that was now haunting me.

Presently some Germans came out of their trench. We counted eight of
them as they crawled down inside their broken wire. We cautiously
followed them, expecting that they were going out to the suspected
"listening post," but they went about fifty yards, and then lay down
just in front of their own parapet. After about twenty minutes they
returned the way they came, and I have no doubt reported that they had
been over to our wire and there were no Australian patrols out.

This had taken up most of our time, and I showed Wilson that we had
only ten minutes left, and that we had better get back so as not to cut
it too fine. I was rather surprised when he objected, spelling out
Morse on my hand that we had come out to find the "listening post," and