There was silence behind after that, save for splashings and splodgings. My heart misgave me that I was coming to undrained trenches of the worst description, or to water-logged impasses! Still I strode on, or waited interminable waits for the “All up” signal. At last we reached houses, grim and black, new and awfully unknown. I nearly tumbled down a cellar as a sentry challenged. I was preparing for humble questions as to where we were, the nearest way to X, and a possible joke to the sergeant (this joke had not materialised, and seemed unlikely to be of the easiest), when I recovered myself from the cellar, mounted some steps, and found myself on a road beside a group of Tommies emerging from the Soup Kitchen! My star (the only one visible, I believe, that inky night) had led me there direct! I said nothing, as every one warmed up in spirits as well as bodies with that excellent soup; and no one ever knew of the quailings of my heart along those unknown trenches! To lead men wrong is always bad; but when they are tired out it is unpardonable, and not quickly forgotten. As it was, canteens were soon brimming with thick vegetable soup, filled from a bubbling cauldron with a mighty ladle. In the hot room men glistened and perspired, while a regular steam arose from muddied boots and puttees; every one, from officer to latest joined private, was sipping with dangerous avidity the boiling fluid. Many charges have been laid against divisional staffs, but never a complaint have I heard against a soup kitchen! So in good spirits we tramped along, and dumped our tools in the place where we had found them. “Clank-clank, clank,” as spade fell on spade. Then, “You may smoke” was passed down. The sergeant reported “All correct, Sir!” and we tramped along in file. Soon the bursts of song were swallowed up in a great whistling concert, and we were all merry. The fit passed, and there was silence; then came the singing again, which developed into hymns, and that took us into our billets. Here we were greeted with the most abominable news of réveillé at 5.0 a.m., but I think most of the men were too sleepy to hear it; we two officers deplored our fate while eating a supper set out for us in a greenhouse, our temporary mess-room! That is a working-party: interesting as a first experience to an officer; but when multiplied exceedingly, by day, by night, in rain, mud, sleet, and snow, carrying trench boards, filling sand-bags, digging clay, bailing out liquid mud, and returning cold and drenched, without soup--then, working-parties became a monotonous succession of discomforts that wore out the spirit as well as the body.