Every four or five feet they leave out half a dozen slats. If you dont break your neck in one of these places they get the corners banked the wrong way so youll slide off an get drownd. If they miss you on the straitaway theyll get you on the turns. The Lootenant sleeps with a couple of doboy oficers in a sekshun of engine boiler set in the side of the trench. I sleep down in a place that looks like an old mine. About the only way you could get a shell into the thing would be to lower it down with a rope. Its the best billet Ive struck up here tho. Theres no windos for fresh air feends to be monkeyin with all the time, an of course there aint no light to shine in your face when your tryin to sleep. The only trouble is theres seven fellos sleepin there an only five bunks so we got to take turns sleepin. The floor is to muddy. That is to say, Mable, seven fellos an two hundred rats. I never used to take much stock in those rat stories but I certinly take off my hat to them now. Thats about all you can take off unless you want to get eaten. These fellos will eat anything from the hobnails out of your shoes to a bag of Bull. They make a goat look like a dispeptik. You dont notice them while the candles are lit an your movin around. As soon as you blow out the light an lie still, tho, you can hear them comin out all over to have dinner off your equipment. They have what they call a runners bench outside the tin house where the Lootenant sleeps. Joe an I is supposed to take turns sittin there. Its something like the bell hops bench in a hotel only this is an active front. You wont get that for a minit, Mable. All you can here when your sittin out there a fello inside saying "Hello. Pancake. Get off the wire Peggy. I want Pancake. Pancake busy? Give me Pauline. Is that you Purgatory? This is Pineapple speakin." After Id lissened to that for about half an hour I felt like the gate gard of a bug house. I got hold of the Lootenant in a friendly way an told him Id go halves on my bunk with him cause I didnt think it was safe to sleep with that fello. He might think he was a crum some night an try to choke somebody. The Lootenant said that was just a way they had of telefonin up here. He said you never could tell when a German might be lyin up on the roof or under a bunk lissenin to you. On account of that nobody called anybody else by there right name. For instance he said they called the General Pancake an the Colonel Peggy an this place was called Pineapple. The more I thought about it the more it sounded like a good sensible idear to me. I went in an told the Lootenant that unless he had something better I thought Id call him Prune juice from then on. He said Id guessed wrong unless I wanted to act as a stone crusher on a road gang. The trouble with most of these fellos is there to stuck up to play the game. Its all right to call a General Pancake or a Colonel Peggy but you want to watch out what you call a 2nd Lootenant.