"A cuckoo has been singing on a tree near me--in full view. (It left hurriedly when one of our guns went off close behind the château.) The first time I have ever seen one, I think. It is amazing how tame the animals get. They have so much ground to themselves in the daytime--the rats especially; they flourish freely in the space between the trenches. "Things are fairly quiet and easy here just now." [In one of his letters to me (22 April 1915), he said he had plenty of time now to watch the stars, and would like a set of star maps or something in order to increase his knowledge of them. Accordingly, I sent him a planisphere which I happened to have--an ingenious cardboard arrangement which can be turned so as to show, in a rough way, the stars visible in these latitudes at any time of day and any period of the year.--O. J. L.] "_May Day 1915, 3.20 p.m._ "Thank you very much for the planisphere and for your letter. I have often seen the planisphere before, but never appreciated it until now. "As to the 'Very' pistol, I quite agree that the 'barrel' is too short. If it were longer the light would be thrown farther, which would be much better. As it is, it falls between us and the Germans. "The German lights, which I now learn are fired from a kind of mortar and not by a rocket as I thought, are much better than ours; they give a better and steadier, fatter light, and they are thrown well behind our trenches. However, ours are much better, and theirs are worse than they used to be.... "They have not turned the gas on to us here, though on some days I have smelled distinct traces coming down wind from the north. I should say it was chlorine rather than SO_{2} that I smelled. I don't know whether the ammonia preventive would be better than the soda one. In any case, the great thing is that one is provided. The soda method is the one in use, I believe, in the chlorine works at Widnes and elsewhere." "_Tuesday, 3 May 1915, 12.40 p.m._ "For the first three days we are out here in new billets--officers in a comfortable little house. Last three days of our 'rest' (!) we are going into a wood quite close to our 'Reserve Billets.' We are in 'support' in case of a sudden attack. Roads are so much knocked about by shells that traffic is limited and restricted. So we might not be able to support quick enough unless we were close. "Everything is still very much upset, due to the penetration of our (French) line. They have been shelling our village from the rear (!) and most of the companies have had to quit. _We_ (C Company) are well back now....