The dugout of the M.O. is generally of the superficial variety. It has a roof made up of two or three layers of bags of sand piled on top of a layer of boards, just sufficient to give one a feeling of security in a most insecure position. A straight hit from a shell on the roof of this type of dugout means that a new medical officer will be required for that battalion at once. I have a vivid recollection of my first experience in such a dugout, long before I had become accustomed to living in them by the week. It was on a fairly active front near Bully Grenay. I had been sent from a field ambulance to relieve the regular M.O. while he took a well earned leave. His palatial residence was only about two hundred yards from the front line, its ceiling was less than six feet from the floor, for my head hit it whenever I stood up, and the rain which poured for days trickled down our necks as it filtered through the roof in many places. The shells kept dropping most annoyingly that first day, hitting everywhere except exactly on the center of the roof, and I knew it was only a matter of minutes till one landed there. Then to add to my uneasiness the sergeant lit a fire with wet wood which made a black smoke that poured from the bit of tin which was used for a pipe in the roof. This was the finishing touch, for I felt certain that every gunner on that front was using that smoke for a target. Turning to the sergeant, I asked with as cool a manner as I could command: "How close do those shells have to come before you would consider it advisable to move out?" "To move out? Oh, coming through the roof, I guess," he answered, with a blank stare. I did not dare to ask any more questions, but I thought to myself,--"what a nice, healthy time to move!" It took some time for me to become accustomed to that billet, but out there one learns to become accustomed to anything. In front of the Medical Officer are the men who hold the line. There are four platoons to a company, four companies to a battalion; and with each platoon is one stretcher bearer, making sixteen bearers to each battalion. These stretcher bearers are trained in first aid, dressings, setting fractures and so forth by the M.O. of their regiment when they are out at rest billets behind the lines. In the lines they accompany their platoons and companies, and when the men go over the top in raids and advances the stretcher bearers go with them, stopping to dress and care for the wounded as they cross the battle area.