They had their breakfast of cocoa and bread and jam. Towards noon two men from each section were told off to go back to a farm house behind the lines for the day’s rations. They hurried along the trench in a crouching posture, struck into a communicating trench leading to the rear, and emerged on the outskirts of the wood. There was instantly the crack of a rifle. A sniper had begun his day’s work. The men waited uneasily, clutching their rifles, wondering if any of their comrades had been hit. Kennedy posted his men a yard apart along the trench, ready to fire at the first sign of movement among the enemy. The zig-zag formation of the trench prevented any man from seeing more than the men of his own section, and there came upon them a feeling of loneliness and almost individual responsibility. In about an hour’s time Kenneth and his comrades were relieved to see their food-carriers returning with steaming pails. These contained a sort of hash mixed with beans and potatoes. The men poured this into their billies, warmed them at the braziers, and acknowledged that their dinner of Irish stew à la Française wasn’t half bad. After that food was carried up only at night. The day passed uneventfully. A rifle-shot was heard now and then; from a distant part of the line came the continual rumble of artillery-fire; once they caught sight of a British aeroplane far away to the north-east, with little patches of white smoke following it, hugging it. There was nothing to do except to keep a continual look-out. But at dusk the reality of their danger was brought home to them. Cramped with the fatigue of maintaining a bending-posture one of the men got up to stretch himself. "Keep down!" shouted Kennedy, but it was too late. There was a slight whizz; the man fell headlong. Kenneth ran to him, as the crack of the rifle was heard. Nothing could be done. The bullet had pierced the man’s brain. When it was dark Kenneth and Ginger carried their dead comrade through the trenches to the wood, and buried him there among the trees. They returned in silence to their post. "You’ll write to his mother," said Ginger, as they got back. "She’ll like to know as how poor Dick has been put away decent." "Yes, I’ll write," said Kenneth. "He felt no pain." "War’s a cursed thing," Ginger broke out. "What call have these Kaisers and people to murder young chaps like Dick, all for their own selfishness?--that’s what it comes to. It didn’t ought to be, and ’pon my soul, it beats me why us millions of working men don’t put a stop to it. We’re in it now; I’ll do my bit; but seems to me the world would be all the better if they’d just string up a few of the emperors and such, them as thinks war’s such a mighty fine thing."