And every hole was full of water. To traverse this desert one must wade and flounder through liquid mud waist deep and sometimes deeper. Yet it had to be done. We had nine positions up there at each of which a handful of men must be relieved daily; or rather nightly, as it was, obviously, impossible to move about over that open expanse in daylight. Every yard of it was under scrutiny from the German lines and, even at night, owing to the lavish use of star-shells by the enemy, it was a long and slow journey as it was necessary to stop and remain absolutely quiet when a light came near. The hardest thing about the whole business was to find the men who were to be relieved. There was no path nor road nor landmark of any kind. During the time we were in, it rained continuously and at no time was a star visible. The positions where they were stationed were exactly like the rest of the surrounding country--merely enlarged shell-holes with, perhaps, a fragment of a sand-bag parapet. No lights could be shown, they did not even dare use "Very lights," as our "star-lights" are known. They were not in any regular formation but at irregular intervals along what had been a very crooked line. Fortunately, we had a "natural born" guide on our first trip in and we found them all. After that we managed to "carry on" but not without many slips. It was nothing unusual for a relief party suddenly to find themselves in the German lines and have to work their way out as best they could. If caught out after dawn one had to lie low in a shell-hole all day, probably under heavy artillery fire, until darkness came and made it possible to return unseen. This trouble was not confined to our side and it was by no means an uncommon occurrence for parties of the enemy to get lost in the same way. Sometimes these adventures resulted in rather sharp bombing engagements. One night a whole platoon of about forty Germans went through a gap in our line and bumped into a strong supporting party of ours at Shelley Farm where they were all captured. They had been looking for one of the craters whose garrison they were to relieve. Individual prisoners were taken nearly every night. [Illustration: Canadian Machine Gunners Digging Themselves Into Shell-Holes] Under the prevailing conditions, it was impossible to take machine guns up, so we depended entirely upon Lewis guns. Fortunately no determined attack was made on us during this time as it is extremely doubtful if we could have held them there. We would, of course, have stopped them a few hundred yards back, at our support line, and I must confess that I had at times a sneaking desire to see them come over and get into that mud so we could move back to comparatively comfortable quarters.