One March afternoon, a few days later, the following letter reached Pamela, who was still with her sister. It was addressed in Desmond Mannering's large and boyish handwriting. 'B.E.F., _March_. 'MY DEAR PAMELA--I am kicking my heels here at an engineer's store, waiting for an engineer officer who is wanted to plan some new dug-outs for our battery, and as there is no one to talk to inside except the most inarticulate Hielander I ever struck, I shall at last make use of one of your little oddments, my dear, which are mostly too good to use out here--and write you a letter on a brand new pocket-pad, with a brand new stylo. 'I expect you know from Arthur about where we are. It's a pretty nasty bit of the line. The snipers here are the cleverest beasts out. There isn't a night they don't get some of us, though our fellows are as sharp as needles too. I went over a sniping school last week with a jolly fellow who used to hunt lions in Africa. My hat!--we have learnt a thing or two from the Huns since we started. But you have to keep a steady look-out, I can tell you. There was a man here last night in a sniper's post, shooting through a trench loophole, you understand, which had an iron panel. Well, he actually went to sleep with his rifle in his hand, having had a dog's life for two or three nights. But for a mercy, he had pulled down his panel--didn't know he had!--and the next thing he knew was a bullet spattering on it--just where his eye should have been. He was jolly quick in backing out and into a dug-out, and an hour later he got the man. 'But there was an awful thing here last night. An officer was directing one of our snipers--stooping down just behind him, when a Hun got him--right in the eyes. I was down at the dressing-station visiting one of our men who had been knocked over--and I saw him led in. He was quite blind,--and as calm as anything--telling people what to do, and dictating a post card to the padre, who was much more cut up than he was. I can tell you, Pamela, our Army is _fine_! Well, thank God, I'm in it--and not a year too late. That's what I keep saying to myself. And the great show can't be far off now. I wouldn't miss it for anything, so I don't give the Hun any more chances of knocking me over than I can help.