Searchlights were playing everywhere, artillery roared, and bursts of rapid fire told us we had arrived at the place where "the Allemands are very truculent," as General Smith-Dorrien put it. It was now the turn of the other companies for fatigue work and they were placed in the village about half a mile from the front ditch. Our platoon took up dugouts under the hedge. So cunningly were these made that a person walking on the other side of the road would hardly see them, even in the daytime. They had been occupied by French troops and, however valiant our Allies are, they are far from being as clean as the British soldiers, and the first thing we did was to go to work to make these dugouts a little less offensive to our nostrils. These holes of ours were only two feet six inches high, just enough room to turn, and when we wished to sleep, the first man was obliged to crawl in and the rest follow on. It reminds me of the family who lived in one room and slept in one bed so closely packed in that when one wanted to turn there was no way of turning unless all the others did. We made ourselves comfortable as far as circumstances would permit and composed ourselves to sleep. Morning came and we had a look round. Fritz was exchanging compliments with a battery of French seventy-fives and several shells whistled most uncomfortably through the poplar trees on each side of the road. I, for one, considered the dugouts the best place to observe shell fire. The rest of the boys shared my opinion and we lay till the gunners had retired to _dejeuner_ (breakfast). Then we emerged like human rats and breakfasted on hot bacon, bread and coffee. After washing myself thoroughly in a shell crater, I felt at peace with all the world, even the Germans, and having nothing much to do, Morgan and I took a stroll to see the country. In front of us, on the other side of the road was a row of French graves, and while we were here we kept them in first-class condition. A field of "volunteer" wheat waved in the breeze and a shell of a house surrounded by apple and pear trees in full bloom, stood at the corner. It must have been a lovely place before this conflict of hell swept over it. CHAPTER XIX BATTLE OF YPRES It may perhaps seem strange that we should exercise so much care within the precincts of our own lines, but there were two reasons for it: The first one was that the ramifications of the German spy system extended to our own ranks and there was always a possibility that a man in khaki, whom you would take for a fellow soldier and pass with a nod, would put a bullet through your head the moment your back was turned. That element of German espionage, strange and incredible as it may sound, is something with which the military authorities have constantly to contend.