Vlamertinghe, with the little plot of wooden crosses by the cross roads; Elverdinghe, where the gas first came, and the organ pipes lay twisted in the wreckage of the unroofed church; where the long row of French graves rest against the chateau wall, graves covered with long grass--each with an empty bottle upside down at their head. And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass Among the Guests star-scatter'd on the Grass, ... turn down an empty Glass. * * * * * And in the family archives are some excellent reproductions--not photographs of course, for the penalty for carrying a camera is death at dawn--of ruined churches and shell-battered chateaux. Perhaps the most interesting one, at any rate the most human, is a "reproduction" of a group of cavalry men. They had been digging in a little village a mile behind the firing-line--a village battered and dead from which the inhabitants had long since fled. Working in the garden of the local doctor, they were digging a trench which ran back to the cellar of the house, when on the scene of operations had suddenly appeared the doctor himself. By signs he possessed himself of a shovel, and, pacing five steps from the kitchen door and three from the tomato frame, he too started to dig. "His wife's portrait, probably," confided the cavalry officer to Jim, as they watched the proceeding. "Or possibly an urn with her ashes." It was a sergeant who first gave a choking cry and fainted; he was nearest the hole. "Yes," remarked Jim, "he's found the urn." With frozen stares they watched the last of twelve dozen of light beer go into the doctor's cart. With pallid lips the officer saw three dozen of good champagne snatched from under his nose. "Heavens! man," he croaked, "it was _dry_ too. If our trench had been a yard that way...." He leant heavily on his stick, and groaned. The moment was undoubtedly pregnant with emotion. "'E'ad a nasty face, that man--a nasty face. Oh, 'orrible." Hushed voices came from the group of leaners. The "reproduction" depicts the psychological moment when the doctor with a joyous wave of the hand wished them "_Bonjour, messieurs,_" and drove off. "Not one--not one ruddy bottle--not the smell of a perishing cork. Stung!" But Jim had left. Which very silly and frivolous story is topsy-turvy land up to date, or at any rate typical of a large bit of it. CHAPTER VII ARCHIE AND OTHERS However, to be serious. It was as he came away from this scene of alarm and despondency that Jim met an old pal who boasted the gunner badge, and whom conversation revealed as the proud owner of an Archie, or anti-aircraft gun. And as the salient is perhaps more fruitful in aeroplanes than any other part of the line, and the time approached five o'clock (which is generally the hour of their afternoon activity), Jim went to see the fun.