Even a Cockney soldier, lacking as he is in any subtle sympathy with the emotional and immaterial sides of life, confesses that it gives him the creeps proper to be out there in the open jaws of darkness, away from his mates and almost right under the nose of old Boche. An Irish soldier will admit that on this duty he does have a genuine feeling of terror. Crouching in the soft, yielding earth, he imagines he is in the grave, watching and waiting he knows not for what. Everything is indefinite and uncertain. There is a vague presentiment that some unknown but awful evil is impending. Perhaps a thousand hostile German eyes are staring at him through the darkness along rifle barrels; or, more horrible still, perhaps a thousand invisible devils are on the prowl to drag his soul to hell. The supernatural powers are the only forces the Irish soldier fears. The senses of the sentry are so abnormally alert that if grass were growing near him he had only to put his ear to the ground to hear the stirring of the sap. But though he listens intently, not a sound comes out of the blackness. He regards the profound stillness as confirmation of his worst fears. All is silence in the trench behind him, where his comrades ought to be. He would welcome the relief of voices and the sound of feet in the enemy's lines. But the Gerrys give no sign of life. Is he alone in the whole wide world, the solitary survivor of this terrible war? What would he not part with to be able to get up and run! But he is fixed to his post by a sense of duty, just as strong as if he were chained there by iron bands. To cry out would afford immense relief to his overwrought feelings. But his tongue seems paralysed in his mouth. Then he bethinks him of his prayers. From his inside tunic pocket he takes out his beads--which his mother gave him at parting and made him promise faithfully always to carry about his person--and, making the sign of the cross, he is soon absorbed in the saying of the Rosary. Resignation and fortitude came to his aid. The invisible evil agencies by which he had really been encompassed--loneliness, anxiety, melancholy--are dispelled.