But for his pallor, one might think that man yonder is still living. He is sitting in an easy attitude, leaning forward, one hand idle in his lap, his rifle against his knee, and with the other hand raised to his cheek as though he were brushing off a fly. But his glassy eyes stare, and his face is bloodless and grey, while a large hole in his chest shows where the enemy shrapnel smote him. Corpses of dead Germans are piled, in places, one over the other, some showing terrible gaping wounds, some headless, some stripped of all or part of their clothing, by the terrific explosion of a great shell which rent their garments from them. In more than one place old graves have been blown sky-high, and huddled skeletons, still clad in the rags of a uniform, lie stark under the open sky. Papers, kits, water-bottles, rifles, helmets, bayonets, smoke goggles, rations, and ammunition are scattered everywhere in confusion. Some of the _débris_ is battered to bits, some in perfect condition. Shell-cases, shell-noses, and shrapnel pellets lie everywhere, and there arises from the ground that peculiar, terrible odour of blood, bandages, and death, an odour always dreaded and never to be forgotten. In one German dug-out three men were killed as they lay, and sat, sleeping. Some one has put a sock over their faces; it were best to let it remain there. Yonder, a Canadian and a German lie one on top of the other, both clutching their rifles with the bayonets affixed to them, one with a bayonet thrust through his stomach, the other with a bullet through his eye. At night the very lights shine reluctant over the scene, but the moon beams impassive on the dead. Burial parties work almost silently, speaking in whispers, and, shocking anomaly, one now and then hears some trophy hunter declare, “Say, this is some souvenir, look at this ‘Gott mit Uns’ buckle!” “A” COMPANY RUSTLES When we got into the bally place it was raining in torrents, and the air was also pure purple because the Colonel found some one in his old billet, and the Town-Major, a cantankerous old dug-out who seemed to exist chiefly for the purpose of annoying men who did go into the front line, was about as helpful as the fifth wheel to a wagon. Finally, the Colonel shot out of his office like an eighteen-pounder from a whizz-bang battery, and later on the tattered remnants of our once proud and haughty Adjutant announced to us, in the tones of a dove who has lost his mate, that there were no billets for us at all, and that officers and men would have to bivouac by the river.