Anything is used for trench work; often if we waited for the proper materials we should be uncomfortable, so it is one of the qualifications of a good soldier to find things. Sometimes we steal material belonging to other units, then stick around until the owners come back and help them look for them; however, it is always advisable to steal materials from juniors in rank; if they find it out, and are senior, then you are in for a one-sided strafe. One of the other battery subalterns found a deserted carpenter’s shop and he let his men loose to dismantle it. They took the parts of steel machines and used them for the construction of a dugout. One man said, “It’s like coming home drunk and smashing up the grand piano with an axe.” They must have attracted the attention of the ever-alert Boche, for no sooner had they moved out than the place was shelled to the ground. Everything I now look at with an eye to its value for trench construction; thus, telegraph poles, doors, iron girders, and rails are more valuable to us out here than a Rolls Royce. [Illustration] The “Crump.” ------------------------------------- Slang or trench language is used universally. My own general talks about “Wipers,” the Tommy’s pronunciation of Ypres, and I have seen a reference to “Granny” (the fifteen-inch howitzer) in orders “mother” is the name given to the twelve-inch howitzer. The trench language is changing so quickly that I think the staff in the rear are unable to keep up to date, because they have recently issued an order to the effect that slang must not be used in official correspondence. Now instead of reporting that a “dud Minnie” arrived over back of “mud lane,” it is necessary to put, “I have the honor to report that a projectile from a German Minnenwerfer landed in rear of Trench F 26 and failed to explode.” Sometimes names of shells go through several changes. For example, high explosives in the early part of the war were called “black Marias,” that being the slang name for the English police patrol wagon. Then they were called “Jack Johnsons,” then “coal boxes,” and finally they were christened “crumps” on account of the sound they make, a sort of _cru-ump!_ noise as they explode. “Rum jar” is the trench mortar. “Sausage” is the slow-going aerial torpedo, a beastly thing about six feet long with fins like a torpedo. It has two hundred and ten pounds of high explosive and makes a terrible hole. “Whiz bang” is shrapnel. Shelling is continuous. We have thousands of pieces of shells and fuse caps about the premises. I have in front of me a fragment of a shell about fourteen inches long and about four and one-half inches across, which came from a German gun. The edges are so sharp that it cuts your hand to hold it. I use it as a paper-weight. -------------------------------------