When "A" Company filed out at six o'clock that night to take up protective duty along the new wire, as before, while the new trench was proceeded with, I think we might have been excused for feeling a bit creepy. I can't say how the men felt, but I confess I had made up my mind that my own chances of getting back were tolerably thin. One must move about a good bit to do one's job properly, and keep touch with a hundred men strung out over 300 yards of ground in pitch darkness. As a matter of fact, it was barely dark when we filed out. We daren't leave it a minute later, in case a strong Boche patrol should have worked inside our line, and been waiting for the working party when it came out with bombs. We simply had to be beforehand with 'em; and there was no getting away from the fact that the Boche had had all day in which to study this new line of ours and make his plans. I say I don't know how our men were feeling. I do know they were cracking little jokes themselves about it before we left the sap. "This way for motor ambulances!" "Change here for Blighty and the Rest Cure!" "Where'll you have yours, matey?" I heard plenty of remarks like that as I worked my way down Stinking Sap to get to the head of my lot before we moved out. "You'll be all right," said one of mine to a "C" Company man as he entered the sap. "Mister blooming Fritz can't get at you with 'A' Company out in front, you take it from me. We'll twist his tail properly if he does come." The "C" men were for digging again, you know. It's impossible for an officer to feel shaky, however slight his experience, when he has men like ours to work with. It wasn't exactly a proper trench that "C" Company went to work in that night. There were bits that were almost finished; and then, again, there were other lengths where it was only a chain of holes, linked together by bits a yard or two long, in which the surface had been shifted, just to mark out the trace of the new line. But every man was able to get into cover right away, even in the worst bits, because of these holes, and then, being in a hole, his job was to cut his way along into the next hole just as quick as his strength would allow him. The trench was cut narrow, you know; not a quarter the width of the old trenches we have occupied. This doesn't make for comfort in getting to and fro; but it does give far safer cover from every kind of projectile, and especially from the deadly shrap. and the slippy whizz.