Dunn went on. ‘These Welshmen are peculiar. They won’t stand being shouted at. They’ll do anything if you explain the reason for it. They will do and die, but they have to know their reason why. The best way to make them behave is not to give them too much time to think. Work them off their feet. They are good workmen. Officers must work too, not only direct the work. Our time-table is like this. Breakfast at eight o’clock in the morning, clean trenches and inspect rifles, work all morning; lunch at twelve, work again from one till about six, when the men feed again. “Stand-to” at dusk for about an hour, work all night, “stand-to” for an hour before dawn. That’s the general programme. Then there’s sentry duty. The men do two-hour sentry spells, then work two hours, then sleep two hours. At night sentries are doubled, so our working parties are smaller. We officers are on duty all day and divide up the night in three-hourly watches.’ He looked at his wrist watch. ‘I say,’ he said, ‘that carrying-party must have got the R.E. stuff by now. Time we all got to work. Look here, Graves, you lie down and have a doss on that bunk. I want you to take the watch before “stand-to.” I’ll wake you up and show you round. Where the hell’s my revolver? I don’t like to go out without that. Hello, Walker, what was wrong?’ Walker laughed. ‘A chap from the new draft. He had never fired his musketry course at Cardiff, and to-night he fired ball for the first time. It seemed to go to his head. He’d had a brother killed up at Ypres and he said he was going to avenge him. So he blazed off all his own ammunition at nothing, and two bandoliers out of the ammunition-box besides. They call him the Human Maxim now. His foresight’s misty with heat. Corporal Parry should have stopped him; but he was just leaning up against the traverse and shrieking with laughter. I gave them both a good cursing. Some other new chaps started blazing away, too. Fritz retaliated with machine-guns and whizz-bangs. No casualties. I don’t know why. It’s all quiet now. Everybody ready?’ They went out and I rolled up in my blanket and fell asleep. Dunn woke me about one o’clock. ‘Your watch,’ he said. I jumped out of the bunk with a rustle of straw; my feet were sore and clammy in my boots. I was cold, too. ‘Here’s the rocket-pistol and a few flares. Not a bad night. It’s stopped raining. Put your equipment on over your raincoat or you won’t be able to get at your revolver. Got a torch? Good. About this flare business. Don’t use the pistol too much. We haven’t many flares, and if there’s an attack we will want as many as we can get. But use it if you think that there is something doing. Fritz is always sending up flare lights, he’s got as many as he wants.’