And so the small hours lengthen into the rather larger ones, and morning Stand-to comes round again. It isn't often it's so absolutely uneventful as my jottings on the subject, of course. But you must just regard this as the merest skeleton outline of the average routine of trench days. And then, to be sure, I've left out lots of little things. Also, every day brings its special happenings, and big or little strafes. One thing we do not get in trenches, and I cannot believe we ever should, from what I've seen of it; and that is monotony, boredom, idleness, lack of occupation. That's a fancy of the newspaper writers which, so far as I know, has literally no relation whatever to the facts of trench life on the British Front in France; certainly not to anything as yet seen by your "_Temporary Gentleman_." STALKING SNIPERS We are trying to work one of our little cunning stunts to-day. Last night I had an observation patrol out, and having no special job on, decided to devote our time to the examination of the Boche wire--their entanglements, you know, in the sector opposite our particular line. I had only two men with me: one of my own Platoon scouts and a lad named Hankin, of whom I have great hopes as a sniper. He's in my No. 3 Section, and a very safe and pretty shot with a rifle, especially at long ranges. He'd never been on patrol and was most anxious to go, and to have an opportunity of looking at the Boche line, to verify his suspicions regarding certain holes in the ground which he thought their snipers used. Our patrol had two interesting results, for one of which we have to thank Hankin's intelligence. The other was a bit of luck. The reason I took such a small patrol was that the aim was observation pure and simple; not strafing; and the men were more than usually tired, and had a lot of parapet repair work which had to be put through before daylight. It was about a quarter to one in the morning when we went out, there having been too much moonlight before then. Hankin had prepared a regular chart of the Boche line from his own observations from his sniping post; quite a clever little map it is, showing clearly his suspected sniping shelters, of which there are four. We drew a blank in the first two of these, and for the third had to tack back from the line of the Boche wire, towards our own, along the side of an old sap, all torn to bits and broken in with shell fire. Hankin felt certain he had seen the flash of rifles from this hole; but I thought it was too near our own wire to attract any Boche sniper for regular use.