We are at present apparently preparing for some adventure or other! One never knows how these affairs will turn out. This is indeed the most trying of wars; our life is one of incessant fighting. My experience of last night will illustrate the sort of thing that goes on. I wanted to go round my trenches, but a party of recruits came in just at that time; one was hit on the road half a mile back. He, poor fellow! was taken to hospital, and will probably be in England within ten days of leaving it. So I saw them away, and started to follow them up. I then dived down into a ditch and staggered along, my boots covered with foul mud and water, whilst a sniper commenced to try and take the trench I was in; enfilade it, they call it. Well, I went farther on up the ditch, getting worse and worse into the mire right over my knees. The mud actually worked its way through my leggings to my skin. I wandered on, heavy sniping hissing over my head or into the parapet, covering me with clay occasionally. Of course, everyone who lives in these particular trenches has wet feet day and night. Having been round and talked to everybody and done my best to cheer them up, I met and had a word with Capt. Rodney. He remarked: "Do not stay where you are, sir, I beg of you, for my servant was shot and killed just on that spot, and another man was wounded by the same bullet." It went clean through a book that the unfortunate man was reading. So I discreetly toddled, or rather waded, home about midnight. This morning one of my men was shot through the lungs, not far from our room, and he died at once. This just shows you what a time we go through here, always having to keep our eyes open! Poor Capt. Whelan was killed, I saw in yesterday's paper. He had been lent to the Royal Irish Regiment. Well, good-bye.... IN TRENCHES. _December 19th, 1914._