In a very short time he had become perfectly accustomed to the very mild artillery fire, sniping and machine-gunning. No casualties had occurred in his own company, and he began to think that the dangers of the war had been exaggerated, while its physical discomforts and tedium had been greatly underestimated. The intense frost prevented his shaking off the heavy cold he had caught at Calais, and at the same time had given him a chill on the liver. The same thing had happened to half the men in the company, whether new-comers or old stagers; and all suffered from diarrhœa due to the cold. There was thus the added diversion of frequent visits to the latrine. Those in the line were primitive affairs of a couple of biscuit boxes and buckets, interesting from the fact that the Germans had fixed rifles trained on most of them and might get you if you happened to stand up inopportunely. If you had any sense you waited until the bullet ping-ed over, and then calmly walked out: for lack of which elementary precaution somebody occasionally was popped off. The Pioneers’ latrine, just behind their billet, was a more elaborate six-seater (without separate compartments) built over a deep trench and surrounded with sacking on posts. One of the posts had been damaged by a shell, and there were numerous rents in the sacking from shell splinters. Here Winterbourne was forced to spend a larger portion of his spare time than was pleasant in cold weather. One day when he entered he found another occupant, an artilleryman. This person was carefully examining his grey flannel shirt: and such portions of his body as were exposed to view were covered with small bloody blotches. Some horrid skin disease, Winterbourne surmised. He attended to his own urgent private affairs. “Still terribly cold,” he ventured. “Muckin cold,” said the artilleryman, continuing absorbedly the mysterious search in his shirt. “Those are nasty skin eruptions you have.” “It’s them muckin chats. Billet’s fair lousy with ’em.” Chats? Lousy? Ah, of course, the artilleryman was lousy. So lousy that he had been bitten all over, and had scratched himself raw. Winterbourne felt uncomfortable. He detested the idea of vermin. “How d’you get them? Can’t you get rid of them?” “Get ’em? Everybody gets ’em. Ain’t you chatty? And there ain’t no gettin’ rid of ’em. The clothes they gives you at the baths is as chatty as those you ’ands in. Where there’s dug-outs and billets there’s chats, and where there’s chats, they cops yer.” Winterbourne departed from the lousy artilleryman with a new pre-occupation in life—to remain one of the chatless as long as possible. It was not many weeks, however, before he too became resigned to the louse as an inevitable war comrade. * * * * *