This tobacco was the joy of a soldier's heart and I made my way to the dugout where I felt sure I had left it and there sure enough it was lying on a couple of sandbags. I grabbed it and started back to rejoin Batch, but, just as I did so, I heard the peculiar moaning sound of a "coal box" that seemed to be coming straight at me. Sweating with apprehension I threw myself flat and waited the arrival of hell's messenger. Cr-r-r-mp! it landed right on the dugout I had just vacated. Why I was not killed instantly is one of those miracle mysteries that can never be answered, for I was only about twenty feet away when that shell, which was a 5.9 high explosive, burst directly on the dugout. I flung myself down beside Batch, telling him of the incident. All the sympathy I got was, "Serves you damn well right; a soldier ought to know better than to leave his pipe lying around loose." About an hour after this the boys came down again, with many familiar faces missing. We were allowed a few hours of interrupted sleep, and about daylight we stood to, as is the custom on the Western Front. It was most uncannily quiet after the past days of a continuous fire; the silence disturbed us, and we could see by the actions of the officers that they too were uneasy. Still the fatalistic spirit of the men reasserted itself and the poker parties soon resumed their sittings. CHAPTER XXX THE LAST FIGHT Midnight; we were sleeping in an orchard about a mile back of the lines; I was awakened by a sergeant and told to "Fall in." We did so, and the captain told us what we had to do. "Boys, you are going to try and take Redoubt B; the artillery, what we have of it, will shell their first line for half an hour, and then will lift and play on their second line. While they are doing this you will go over. There's a lot of us who are not going to come back, but the job must be done and I know you will do it." While he was speaking, thoughts of mother, father and home surged more vividly through my mind than at any other time, but moments for reflection were few. We swung out of the orchard on to the road and nothing could be heard except the dull sound of trudging feet. Flares would shoot up into the sky, to hang suspended for a moment, and die away leaving everything in gloom once more. Every now and then a muffled shriek or a coughing gurgle would tell of the passing or wounding of some gallant lad. By that corner of hell we trudged silently, every man busy with his own thoughts. At last we turned up the death trap to our left, on the famous Z---- road. Over its ghastly piles of dead we filed on for many yards without touching solid ground, so thickly lay the dead. At this time we were sighted by the Huns and treated to a fusillade of machine guns and rifle fire. We were now almost to shelter and the men made their way, as only men under fire can, to the safety of a well-constructed trench.