Soon the gramophone was playing merrily away and we poured from our holes like so many rabbits to listen. Oh, the power of music! War may seem romantic in a certain sense to those at a distance, but to those actually engaged in it, it is a sordid monotonous business. Home, parents and loved ones were brought nearer to us than before and memories of an existence that seemed to have passed and gone from us long ago filled my very being. Under the influence of the music the boys evidently forgot there was a war, for one by one we crept from our dugouts and gathered around the charm box. Fritz, however, had not forgotten about the war at all and he soon reminded us that we were there for more serious business than daydreaming under the influence of a gramophone. A salvo of five whiz bangs readily brought us down to earth and into earth we scuttled like a bunch of human ground hogs; I think I made the twenty-yard space to my hole in one leap; at least it seemed like a single jump. No one was hit, but we hugged our holes knowing that the dose would be repeated. I couldn't help but laugh when I heard the voice of one of the boys raised in anger to his chum. "Didn't you bring in the gramophone?" "Do you think I was going to wait for that?" replied the chum. "Well, we wouldn't miss you," was the rejoinder, "but if that music box gets smashed, what shall we do?" The awful possibility of such a contingency must have instantly aroused the negligent one to a sense of the impending danger, for darting from his hole he recovered the precious instrument and made a return trip for the records. For the few days that we were sunken in those miserable holes, which were the merest apologies for dugouts on the canal, we lightened the tedium of the many hours of weary waiting by the magic of that wonderful box.