The war under the earth is a most extraordinary thing. In the main, the army you see in the war zone is not a combatant army. It is the army of supply. The real fighters you seldom set eyes on unless you go and look for them. And, generally speaking, the ghastliness of war is carried on beneath the earth’s level. Given time, the _Boche_ will take a lot of beating as an earth delver. At one spot on the Somme I went into a veritable underground town, where, till the British deluge overtook them, three thousand of the toughest Huns the Kaiser had put into his line lived and thrived. They had sets of compartments there, these men, with drawing-rooms complete, even to the piano, kitchen, bathroom, and electric light, and I was told that there was one place where you could have your photograph taken, or buy a pair of socks! Every visitor down the steps—except the British—was required to turn a handle three times, which pumped air into the lower regions. If you descended without pumping down your portion of fresh air you were guilty of bad manners. Anything more secure has not been invented since Adam. But this impregnable city fell last year, as all things must fall before the steady pressing back of British infantry. The writer tells of discovering in an old French town that was then under fire a shell-torn building on which were displayed two signs reading “First Aid Post” and “Barber Shop.” He says: When I dived inside I saw one man having his arm dressed, for he had been hit by a piece of shell in the square, and in a chair a few yards away a Tommy having a shave. Coming in as a stranger, I was informed that if I didn’t want a haircut or a shave, or hadn’t a healthy wound to dress, this was not the Empire music hall, so I had better “hop it.” It was in “hopping it” that I got astride an unseen fiber of British communication. I went into the adjoining ruins of a big building. A single solitary statue stood aloof in a devastation of tumbled brick and stone. Then, as I was stepping from one mound of rubble to another, as one steps from rock to rock on the seashore, I heard voices beneath me. The wreckage was so complete, so unspeakably complete, that human voices directly under my feet seemed at first startling and indefinite. Moreover, to add to my confusion, I heard the baa-ing of sheep, likewise under the earth. But I could see no hole, no outlet. With the average curiosity of the Britisher I searched around till I discovered a small hole, a foot in diameter, maybe, and a Tommy’s face framed in it laughing up at me. “Hello!” he said. I pulled up, bewildered, and looked at him. “What in Heaven’s name are you doing in there?” I asked. “We’re telephones.... Got any matches?” “I heard sheep,” I informed him. “And what if you did? Got them matches?” I tossed him a box. He dived into darkness, and I heard him rejoicing with his pals because he’d found some one who’d got a light. It meant almost as much to them as being relieved.