Spend the night in the trenches and you are taken into the family; into that very human family of soldierdom in a quiet corner; and the old, care-free spirit of war, which some people thought had passed, is found to be no less alive in siege warfare than on a march of regulars on the Indian frontier or in the Philippines. Gaiety and laughter and comradeship and “joshing” are here among men to whom wounds and death are a part of the game. One may challenge high explosives with a smile, no less than ancient round shot. Settle down behind the parapet and the little incongruities of a trench, paltry without the intimacy of men and locality, make for humour no less than in a shop or a factory. Under the parapet runs the tangle of barbed wire--barbed wire from Switzerland to Belgium--to welcome visitors from that direction, which, to say the least, would be an impolitic direction of approach for any stranger. “All sightseers should come into the trenches from the rear,” says Mr. Atkins. “Put it down in the guidebooks.” Beyond the barbed wire in the open field the wheat which some farmer sowed before the positions were established in this area is now in head, rippling with the breeze, making a golden sea up to the wall of sandbags which is the enemy’s line. It was late June at its loveliest; no signs of war except the sound of our guns some distance away and an occasional sniper’s bullet. One cracked past as I was looking through my glasses to see if there were any evidence of life in the German trenches. “Your hat, sir!” Another moved a sandbag slightly, but not until after the hat had come down and the head under it most expeditiously. Up to eight hundred yards a bullet cracks; beyond that range it whistles, sighs, even wheezes. An elevation gives snipers, who are always trained shots, an angle of advantage. In winter they had to rely for cover on buildings, which often came tumbling down with them when hit by a shell. The foliage of summer is a boon to their craft. “Does it look to you like an opening in the branches of that tree--the big one at the right?” In the mass of leaves a dark spot was visible. It might be natural, or it might be a space cut away for the swing of a rifle barrel. Perhaps sitting up there snugly behind a bullet-proof shield fastened to the limbs was a German sharpshooter, watching for a shot with the patience of a hound for a rabbit to come out of its hole. “It’s about time we gave that tree a spray good for that kind of fungus, from a machine gun!” A bullet coming from our side swept overhead. One of our own sharpshooters had seen something to shoot at. “Not giving you much excitement!” said Tommy. “I suppose I’d get a little if I stood up on the parapet?” I asked. “You wouldn’t get a ticket for England; you’d get a box!” “There’s a cemetery just back of the lines if you’d prefer to stay in France!”