“The Intelligence Officer seized the tape and floundered slowly on. The men behind him breathed heavily, and in quiet tones cursed the water and the mud, the tape and the hand that laid it. Some one tripped. A halt was called. The obstruction proved to be a comrade, some flotsam from the men ahead. He was alive, warm, but inarticulate. A sergeant felt him over in the dark. Some one said, ‘My Gawd, Sir, ’e’s got it through the throat.’ The Intelligence Officer spoke words of promise to the man and left him there. ‘Outgoing troops would pick him up,’ and other well-worn words of comfort, although he knew they might not see him. He felt he was leaving him to die. This is war. “The tape suddenly ended. Heaps of broken stone disclosed the close proximity of a concrete dug-out. A guide cautiously felt his way into the darkness and presently led the Intelligence Officer down some steps below the ground. At the foot of the steps hung a soaking blanket, behind which a light glimmered feebly. The Intelligence Officer cautiously pulled the blanket to one side, and blinked at the group inside. Two Commanding Officers and two Adjutants were talking. ‘Handing over’ was in process. The outgoing were clearly anxious to be gone; the incoming were anxious not to let them go without knowing what lay before them. “A succession of officers and orderlies peered through the doorway, saluted and uttered the magic words, ‘Relief complete, Sir,’ and vanished into the outer darkness. Their strained expressions did not belie the full meaning of the sentence. The outgoing C.O. pushing back his chair with a scraping noise said, with a half-apologetic air, he would be off, and he and his satellites vanished. He had laid down his burden; the 4th Battalion had assumed it. His footsteps sounded light and care-free as they died away. “All that night officers and men groped their way through mud and filth, visiting outposts, distributing rations, each bent on a mission involving the safety and comfort of the other. The Intelligence Officer felt that the atmosphere had changed. The Commanding Officer could have reclined on the German bed in the dug-out, his feet out of the six inches of liquid slush. Actually he spent his time going round the line, four hours of intense physical strain. Shells and bullets do not sound more pleasant because it is dark.