During the next few days it rained the whole of the time, and there was little opportunity for photography; but I obtained some excellent scenes, showing the conditions under which our men were living and fighting, and their indomitable cheerfulness. [Illustration: THE STATE OF THE TRENCHES IN WHICH WE LIVED AND SLEPT (?) FOR WEEKS ON END DURING THE FIRST AND SECOND WINTER OF WAR] [Illustration: OUR DUG-OUTS IN THE FRONT LINE AT PICANTIN IN WHICH WE LIVED, FOUGHT, AND MANY DIED DURING 1914-15, BEFORE THE DAYS OF TIN HATS] About this time I arranged to go to the Canadian front trenches, in their section facing Messines. Arriving at the headquarters at Bailleul, I met Lieutenant-Colonel ----, and we decided to go straight to the front line. Leaving in a heavy rain, we splashed our way through one continuous stream of mud and water. Mile after mile of it. In places the water covered the entire road, until at times one hardly knew which was the road and which was the ditch alongside. Several times our car got ditched. Shell-holes dotted our path everywhere. Apart from the rotten conditions, the journey proved most interesting; vehicles of all kinds, from motor-buses to wheelbarrows, were rushing backwards and forwards, taking up supplies and returning empty. Occasionally we passed ambulance cars, with some poor fellows inside suffering from frost-bite, or "trench-foot" as it is generally called out here. Though their feet were swathed in bandages, and they were obviously in great pain, they bore up like true Britons. Line after line of men passed us. Those coming from the trenches were covered in mud from head to foot, but they were all smiling, and they swung along with a word and a jest as if they were marching down Piccadilly. Those going in to take their places: were they gloomy? Not a bit of it! If anything they were more cheerful, and quipped their mud-covered comrades on their appearance. We drew up at a ruined farm-house, which the Colonel told me used to be their headquarters, until the position was given away by spies. Then the Germans started shelling it until there was hardly a brick standing. Luckily none of the staff were killed. Leaving the farm, we made our way on foot to Ploegsteert Wood. A terrible amount of "strafing" was going on here. Shells were exploding all round, and our guns were replying with "interest." As we made our way cautiously up to the side of the wood, with mud half way up to our knees, we scrambled, or rather waddled, round the base of the much-contested hill, which the Germans tried their hardest to keep, but which, thanks to the Canadians, we wrested from them. Under cover of canvas screens, which in many places were blown away by shell-fire, and bending low to save our heads from the snipers' bullets, we gained the communication trenches. Again wading knee-deep in mud and water, we eventually reached the firing trench.