There is a company commander here called Furber. His nerves are in pieces, and somebody played a dirty joke on him the other day—rolling a bomb, undetonated, of course, down the cellar steps to frighten him. This was thought a great joke. Furber is the greatest pessimist out here. He’s laid a bet with the adjutant that the trench lines will not be more than a mile from where they are in this sector two years hence. Every one laughs at Furber, but they like him because he sings sentimental cockney songs at the brigade gaffs when we are back at Béthune. XIV Now as the summer advanced there came new types of bombs and trench-mortars, heavier shelling, improved gas-masks and a general tightening up of discipline. We saw the first battalions of the new army and felt like scarecrows by comparison. We went in and out of the Cambrin and Cuinchy trenches, with billets in Béthune and the neighbouring villages. By this time I had caught the pessimism of the division. Its spirit in the trenches was largely defensive; the policy was not to stir the Germans into more than their usual hostility. But casualties were still very heavy for trench warfare. Pessimism made everyone superstitious. I became superstitious too: I found myself believing in signs of the most trivial nature. Sergeant Smith, my second sergeant, told me of my predecessor in command of the platoon. ‘He was a nice gentleman, sir, but very wild. Just before the Rue du Bois show he says to me: “By the way, sergeant, I’m going to get killed to-morrow. I know that. And I know that you’re going to be all right. So see that my kit goes back to my people. You’ll find their address in my pocket-book. You’ll find five hundred francs there too. Now remember this, Sergeant Smith, you keep a hundred francs yourself and divide up the rest among the chaps left.” He says: “Send my pocket-book back with my other stuff, Sergeant Smith, but for God’s sake burn my diary. They mustn’t see that. I’m going to get it _here_!” He points to his forehead. And that’s how it was. He got it through the forehead all right. I sent the stuff back to his parents. I divided up the money and I burnt the diary.’ One day I was walking along a trench at Cambrin when I suddenly dropped flat on my face; two seconds later a whizz-bang struck the back of the trench exactly where I had been. The sergeant who was with me, walking a few steps ahead, rushed back: ‘Are you killed, sir?’ The shell was fired from a battery near Auchy only a thousand yards away, so that it must have arrived before the sound of the gun. How did I know that I should throw myself on my face?