It's rather fine, this, you know, and very English. So long as there's a little intermittent grousing going on you can be quite sure of two things--that there's nothing wrong and that the men are in good spirits and content. If there's no grousing, it means one of two things--either that the men are angered about something, in which case they will be unusually silent, or that we are up against real difficulties and hardships involving real suffering, in which case there will be a lot of chaffing and joke-cracking and apparent merriment. Queer, isn't it? But I think it's a true description. If a long day's hard labour--clearing out a trench and building up a parapet, we'll say--is undone and washed out just as it's finished by a succession of Boche oil-cans, mortars, and general bombardment, which also lays out a few good men, and blows the next meal rations sky-high, so that there's the prospect of a long night's extra hard work where some rest had been expected, and all on an empty stomach--then you'll hear no grousing at all, but any number of jocular remarks: "I tell you, the Army of to-day's _all right_!" "We don't get much pay, but, my word, we _do_ see life!" "Save me a lot o' trouble, this will. My fightin' weight was goin' up a lot too fast, but this'll save me givin' up my port wine an' turtle soup!" Then some wag pretends to consult his newspaper, and, looking up, announces that: "On the remainder of the Front the night was comparatively quiet." "Yes," says another, quoting further from the imaginary news, "and the banquet which had been arranged for 'A' Company was pos'poned till the following day." "When it is hoped," adds yet another joker, "that a number of prominent Boche prisoners will attend." Elaborate winks and nods; and one man positively licks his lips as he mutters: "Gosh! If only they really _would_ come over the sticks to-night; if only they would!" "Reg'ler bloomin' pacifist, isn't he?" remarks a student of the Press, "longin' to welcome the gentle Hun with open arms, he is--not 'arf!" "We'll welcome him all right, if only the beggar 'd come. I'd like to use a section or two of 'em for buildin' up this bloomin' parapet. Be stiffer than these sand-bags full o' slush." "Shame! An' you a yewmanitarian, too. Why, how'd our poor chaps ever be able to stand the smell of all them potted Huns, an' so close, too? You're too harsh, mate; reg'ler Prussian, I call you."