"Oh, say, Bub, don't be so damned lazy, come up and show us the way," and the consternation of the Tommy as the Colonel good-naturedly came up and showed him the way was good to look at. On a drizzling, rainy day when our Battalion occupied the front lines on part of the Vimy Ridge, I was standing in front of a so-called dugout, which consisted of a room about twelve feet by twelve, in which, through lack of space, two Medical Officers and their four Assistants and two batmen, ate, slept, and attended the wounded and sick. We were sheltered from shells by a tin roof, on which someone had piled two layers of sandbags. The trenches were of sand with no revetments of any kind, so that the rain, which had been pouring for days, washed the earth down and formed mud to the knees. Sometimes the mud was rich and creamy, and, except for the fact that whoever happened to be in front of you spattered it in your face, it was easy to get through. The other variety of mud was mucilaginous and tenacious, and in getting through it one was very likely to lose his boots--particularly if they were the long rubber kind--and socks, or to get stuck fast. There were many cases where men had to be dug or pulled out; and not one but many men, and on one occasion an officer, came into this dugout of mine during the night in their bare feet. They had come for hundreds of yards in some cases in this manner. On the day of which I speak I was standing in the creamy mud half way to my knees listening to the sharp crack made by bullets whizzing over head, and to the singing of shells, by way of a change from the rather poisonous atmosphere in the dugout, made offensive by the carbon monoxide from a charcoal fire, when I heard someone splashing along through the mud. Looking up, I saw three Staff Officers with the distinguishing red bands on their caps, for they were not wearing helmets. Two of them wore raincoats, so that their rank could not be seen; the third wore no overcoat, but an ordinary officer's uniform with ankle boots and puttees. He strode doggedly behind the others, apparently caring nothing for mud or rain, and to my surprise he had upon his breast, though he looked no more than twenty years of age, the ribbons of a number of decorations. They stopped just before they came to where I was. Taking out a map of these trenches they and their guide, or runner, began studying it, while I stood wondering how a boy of twenty could have won these coveted decorations, finally deciding that he must be in the Air Service. While I was still wondering he turned to me, and, though he was of my own rank, he saluted and, with a pleasant smile, asked me if I could give them any information as to this front. I joined them, and for some time I answered their questions, which, rather strangely, were in regard to a cemetery to which Guillemot trench--the one in which we stood--led on its way to the firing line 500 yards away.