"Don't rhapsodise," begged that worthy--"don't rhapsodise; eat your lunch. If you tell me it will be good to see your men again, I shall assault you with the remnants of the tinned lobster. I know it will be good--no less than fifteen officers have told me so in the last six weeks. But I don't care--it leaves me quite, quite cold. If you're in France, you pine for England; when you're in England, you pine for France; and I sit in this damn field and get giddy." Which might be described as to-day's great thought. * * * * * Thus did Jim Denver come back to his regiment. Once again the life of the moles claimed him--the life of the underworld: that strange existence of which so much has been written, and so little has been really grasped by those who have not been there. A life of incredible dreariness--yet possessing a certain "grip" of its own. A life of peculiar contrasts--where the suddenness--the abruptness of things strikes a man forcibly: the extraordinary contrasts of black and white. Sometimes they stand out stark and menacing, gleaming and brilliant; more often do they merge into grey. But always are they there.... As I said before, my object is not to give a diary of my hero's life. I am not concerned with his daily vegetation in his particular hole, with Hooge on his right front and a battered farm close to. Sleep, eat, read, look through a periscope and then repeat the performance. Occasionally an aerial torpedo, frequently bombs, at all times pessimistic sappers desiring working parties. But it was very much the "grey" of trench life during the three days that Jim sat in the front line by the wood that is called "Railway." One episode is perhaps worthy of note. It was just one of those harmless little jests which give one an appetite for a hunk of bully washed down by a glass of tepid whisky and water. Now be it known to those who do not dabble in explosives, there are in the army two types of fuze which are used for firing charges. Each type is flexible, and about the thickness of a stout and well-nourished worm. Each, moreover, consists of an inner core which burns, protected by an outer covering--the idea being that on lighting one end a flame should pass along the burning inner core and explode in due course whatever is at the other end. There, however, their similarity ends; and their difference becomes so marked that the kindly powers that be have taken great precautions against the two being confused.