few shots, and was then taken to the rear again. When we returned from our "walk," as we called that nightly excursion, we had to go to our positions. There we had to perform all imaginable kinds of work. One evening we had to fortify a small farm we had taken from the French the day before. We were to construct machine-gun emplacements. The moon was shining fairly brightly. In an adjoining garden there were some fruit trees, an apple tree among them, with some apples still attached to it. A Frenchman had hanged himself on that tree. Though the body must have hung for some days--for it smelled considerably--some of our sappers were eager to get the apples. The soldiers took the apples without troubling in the least about the dead man. Near that farm we used mine throwers for the first time. The instruments we used there were of a very primitive kind. They consisted of a pipe made of strong steel plate and resting on an iron stand. An unexploded shell or shrapnel was filled with dynamite, provided with a fuse and cap, and placed in the tube of the mine thrower. Behind it was placed a driving charge of black powder of a size corresponding with the distance of the target and the weight of the projectile. The driving charge, too, was provided with a fuse that was of such a length that the explosion was only produced after the man lighting the fuse had had time to return to a place of safety. The fuse of the mine was lit at the same time as the former, but was of a length commensurate with the time of flight of the mine, so as to explode the latter when the mine struck the target, or after a calculated period should the mark be missed. The driving charge must be of such strength that it throws the projectile no farther than is intended. The mine thrower is not fired horizontally but at a steep angle. The tube from which the mine is fired is, for instance, placed at an angle of 45 degrees, and receives a charge of fifteen grammes of black powder when the distance is 400 yards.