But nobody seems to mind. Of course there is a casualty now and then. Occasionally a hole is blown in a road, or the side of a house is knocked in. Yet the general attitude of the population is one of rather interested expectancy. There is always the cellar to retire to if things get really serious. The gratings are sandbagged to that end. At other times--well, there is always the pleasing possibility of witnessing the sudden removal of your neighbour's landmark. Officers breakfasting in their billets look up from their porridge, and say,-- "That's a dud! _That's_ a better one! Stick to it, Bill!" It really is most discouraging, to a sensitive and conscientious Hun. The same unconcern reigns in the trenches. Let us imagine that we are members of a distinguished party from Headquarters, about to make a tour of inspection. We leave the town, and after a short walk along the inevitable poplar-lined road turn into a field. The country all round us is flat--flat as Cheshire; and, like Cheshire, has a pond in every field. But in the hazy distance stands a low ridge. "Better keep close to the hedge," suggests the officer in charge. "There are eighty guns on that ridge. It's a misty morning; but they've got all the ranges about here to a yard; so they _might_--" We keep close to the hedge. Presently we find ourselves entering upon a wide but sticky path cut in the clay. At the entrance stands a neat notice-board, which announces, somewhat unexpectedly:-- OLD KENT ROAD The field is flat, but the path runs downhill. Consequently we soon find ourselves tramping along below the ground-level, with a stout parapet of clay on either side of us. Overhead there is nothing--nothing but the blue sky, with the larks singing, quite regardless of the War. "Communication trench," explains the guide. We tramp along this sunken lane for the best part of a mile. It winds a good deal. Every hundred yards or so comes a great promontory of sandbags, necessitating four right-angle turns. Once we pass under the shadow of trees, and apple-blossom flutters down upon our upturned faces. We are walking through an orchard. Despite the efforts of ten million armed men, brown old Mother Earth has made it plain that seedtime and harvest shall still prevail. Now we are crossing a stream, which cuts the trench at right angles. The stream is spanned by a structure of planks--labelled, it is hardly necessary to say, LONDON BRIDGE. The side-street, so to speak, by which the stream runs away, is called JOCK'S JOY. We ask why? "It's the place where the Highlanders wash their knees," is the explanation.