I am in to-night from a day in the trenches. It rained all the time. The trenches were gluey and sticky, and the “duck-boards” along which we traveled were afloat a good share of the day. But the only people who used really strong language about having to eat, sleep, and navigate in such soggy territory was our party of civilian tenderfoots. The cave-dwellers in khaki whom we encountered in endless numbers were as happy as school-children on a picnic. Clay-spattered from head to foot, their clothes often wringing wet, they looked up from whatever happened to be their tasks and grinned as we passed. Our chief and always dominating impression was of their grins and smiles. I am firmly convinced that soldiers who can laugh in such weather can not be overcome by anything, not even the Prussian military machine. Perhaps Tommy smiled more broadly than usual to-day at our expense, for during our hike from a certain quarry to a certain front line “Fritz” sent over whiz-bangs which caused us arm-chair warriors from home to duck and dodge in the most un-Napoleonic fashion, even though our gyrations were in obedience to nature’s first law—self-preservation. When you’re in a trench and a shell screeches through the heavens—you always hear it and never see it—the temptation to side-step is the last word in irresistibility. You have been provided with a steel helmet before starting out on the expedition in view of the possibility that a stray piece of German shrapnel may come your way. These helmets have saved many a gallant Tommy from sudden death. After you’ve heard a whiz-bang and find that you are still intact, you ask: “Was that a _Boche_ or one of ours?” You experience an indefinable sense of relief when you are told that it was “one of ours,” but you keep on ducking in the same old way whenever the air is rent. Yes, it is the invincible grin of Tommy Atkins in abominable atmospheric surroundings and in the omnipresent shadow of death that has photographed itself most indelibly on my memory to-day. But next to that I am struck by his amazing good health as mirrored by his ruddy cheeks and bright eyes. Certainly the strapping young fellows whom I have seen are a vastly finer, sturdier lot, physically viewed, than any set of men now running around the streets of London in citizens’ clothes. It is manifestly “the life,” this endless sojourn of theirs on the edge of No Man’s Land, with the enemy a rifle-shot away.