I once acted as referee at a brigade boxing tournament when during the final bout Boche airplanes spotted us. They sent down bombs and darts, but we went on with our sport until a bomb fell close to the ringside and killed several spectators. Even then the crowd seemed bent on remaining to witness the end of the bout until the brigadier commandant, one of the spectators, suddenly said: “We are a lot of damn’ fools to stay here,” and he ordered the bugler to sound the safety call. Regimental, brigade and divisional concerts are daily affairs in “Restville.” Every company has its singers, dancers and jokers. It may not strike you as a delicate or charming phase of trench sport, but in the summer months “Cootee-hunting” is the principal diversion. In other words, flea picking. These vermin are more terrible than the Germans in provoking our boys to profanity. Whether on the march, in the trenches or in billets, cootee-hunting is played by everybody from General to private. One trench game is to bet on who can capture the most cootees in a given time. A pack of cards is a precious possession, especially in the trenches. The best known games for which they are used are Poker, Banker and Broker, Brag, Twenty-one, Crown and Anchor and House. The playing of these games provides a very necessary relaxation. One day’s picture of life in the trenches will convey an idea of its generality. You would find men not on duty reading newspapers and books. They were reading any kind of newspaper or books. Old yellow fragments of newspapers were precious possessions. You would find that they had even memorized the advertisements and the contents of the women’s pages. Pieces of printed matter were so precious that they were read and re-read until each man could tell you the whole thing without looking at the paper. Men write letters with tiny pencil stubs that are guarded zealously and only loaned to closest friends. I remember one day when some of the men were playing Brag. In this game each man is given three cards and the best hand a man can hold is three aces. Six men were playing in this game. After a few unimportant deals two men got right down to earnest betting. They staked all their money. And they staked their next most precious possession--cigarettes. Then one man pitted one captured German officer’s cap against two private German’s helmets. This was followed by the bet of the piece of a shell that had been taken from the wound of one of the players some months back against an iron cross which the other player had ripped off a German’s breast in a night raid. In the end they had heaped up all their souvenirs, but when they attempted to wager their next quarter’s pay I interrupted the game. It was no wonder they had been betting so hard. The winner held the highest possible hand of the game--three aces. But the loser had three kings.