"I was in my dug-out with Hogg, another officer. I was trying to make tea, but every shell blew out the Primus, and covered us in dust. I made it, however, eventually, and we had just drunk it when a shell blew the parados of the trench down, not far from our door, and the next wrecked the dug-out next door to mine (a man who happened to be inside having a miraculous escape). We judged it was time to clear (the machine guns had already been withdrawn to safety), and got away as best we could through and over the debris that had been a trench. "Later in the day I made my way back, and recovered my pack and most of my belongings. It was exciting work getting back, because they were sending whizz-bangs through the gaps in the parapet, and the communication trenches in the rear were blocked in places, so that you had to get up on top and 'scoot' across and drop in the trench again. "That evening they gave us a second shelling, and one hit my dug-out fair and square (I had quarters in a support trench). When I returned next day for the rest of my things--my equipment and some provisions--I had to put two men on to dig them out. It took three-quarters of an hour to get at them, through the wreckage of timber, corrugated iron, and earth.... "On Tuesday afternoon they sent off another mine,--about the seventh since we have been in,--but they are all well in front of our parapet. And on Wednesday they gave us twelve sausages--the first I had seen. "The trouble is, we have a number of mine shafts under the ground between our trenches and theirs, and they are fearfully 'windy' about them. They keep trying to stop us mining them, and their shelling is with the object of blowing down our sap-heads. Their mines, too, go up short, because they are trying to blow in our galleries; or else they are so scared they send them off before they are ready. I think the last explanation is probably more near the truth, because when one of their mines went up recently a lot of Germans went up with it!... "We have been in here a fortnight to-night. You can imagine how we long for clean clothes. Most of the officers have not been out of their clothes all that time, but I have been very lucky. I had two good cold baths when I was down here before, and to-day I had a lovely hot one in a full-length wooden bath. A tremendous luxury! Also I had some clean socks to put on.... "On the day I was shelled out of my dug-out my servant, Bailey, was hit on the leg by a piece of shell and has gone down the line wounded, not very seriously, I think. He is a great loss to me, but I have got another one now, Gray, who shapes very well. He is young and willing, and quite intelligent.