To the left of the staircase was another door which led along a passageway, both sides of which had rows of bunks. With the aid of the candles we had, I could see that there were several other exits or entrances, similar to the one we had come down. As I could not make out any signs of daylight from above, I judged that the entrances had been blocked by the effect of our barrage. As we neared what I then thought was the end of this passage, I saw some of the men of my battalion. They told me that they had permission to break away for an hour. These men were seated around a table having a good meal. They stood up as I approached. I told them to carry on. The Germans had used this room as a dining-room. There were several German candles burning briskly on the table. To the right was a small kitchen. Here one of the boys was frying German bacon and eggs. It was not long before I had a very good meal, a little of everything. In the German water bottles which were hung up along the walls we found cold coffee, the aroma of which as it was heated was something to be remembered. My menu consisted of bacon and eggs, jellied meat, sausage, cakes and candies. There was also wine, mineral waters, Spanish cigars and a large number of red packages of gold tipped cigarettes marked "Puck." Needless to mention I brought a good feed back to my platoon. This German dugout we marked by sticking a Hun rifle and bayonet upright on top of the parapet with a German steel helmet over the butt of the rifle. We could see it from some distance, otherwise it would have been very hard to have found this dugout again at that particular time, as the ground was simply one mass of shell holes. You could not place a table eight feet square anywhere in this locality where it would not slide into a shell hole. As the sergeant was making the landmark on the top of the dugout, I noticed the body of the Hun whose photograph I had. This dugout was named the "Berliner House." The following day we made it our company headquarters. It accommodated all the men of our company who were not on duty. As I looked at the bodies of the Germans, who had been killed in the attack, I remarked that they were all clean shaven. Their equipment and uniforms were good and in first class condition. Large quantities of small arm ammunition done up in cloth bandoliers were nearby and large numbers of Mauser rifles lay here and there on the ground with the jetsam of the battlefield. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Communication trench.] [Footnote 2: Trench mats are usually 8 feet long by 2-1/2 feet broad and are simply flooring boards about 2 inches broad which are nailed about two inches apart to a strong scantling 3 x 3 inches thick.] CHAPTER III THE CALL OF THE MOTHERLAND "Uncle, what are you going to do with that gun?"