In the daytime No Man's Land is never a land of living men. Often it occupies a space hardly larger than a good-sized garden. It is a desolate stretch of ground, indeed. One sees only masses of barbed wire and yawning shell holes, sometimes containing all that remains of what once were fighting men. Perhaps a few ragged stumps dot it here and there, or a pile of debris that originally formed part of a farmhouse, long since leveled to the earth by the barking dogs of war, the big guns. At night, however, it undergoes a swift transformation. Under cover of the darkness it soon swarms with living men. They crawl stealthily about on their details. Perhaps they are risking their lives on listening duty. Again they may be out to mend broken-down wire. After a battle they steal out to bring in their dead and wounded. Night expeditions across No Man's Land are of equal importance to both sides. Each sends out its eyes to keep tab on the movements of the other and find out, if possible, his opponent's strength and plans. Many a silent battle is fought there in the dark when two enemy details chance to meet. Never a shot is fired. Steel meets steel and the victor goes on his way, leaving behind the lifeless form of his antagonist. Out there, kill quickly and mercilessly is the watchword. The ethics of No Man's Land permit of no quarter. The quiet continuing all evening, toward ten o'clock the new men and a part of their seasoned comrades were allowed to seek the dug-outs for a little sleep. At three o'clock in the morning the sleepers were routed out with the order "stand to." Though the Khaki Boys could not know it, a patrol had returned half an hour before with the information that they had surprised a Boche wiring party, who were busily engaged in cutting lanes in their own wires, and had killed two of them. This looked decidedly suspicious, to say the least. The patrol was of the belief that an attack on the American trench would soon begin, followed by a raiding party of Boches. Shortly after the Khaki Boys had taken up their positions on the fire-step, the German guns began a furious bombardment of the American trench, forcing the men to shelter themselves behind the parados. The parados, in this particular trench, were composed of squares of sandbags built up at intervals for a distance of about three feet behind the parapet, leaving a lane in the trench just wide enough for passage back and forth behind them. These parados did much to avert casualties caused from bits of bursting high-explosive shells. The American batteries lost no time in opening up on the Germans, returning their fire with equal fury. For a while the din was terrific. Shells screamed overhead, causing a pandemonium of racket. Bursting, their fire made No Man's Land almost as light as day. In the trench many Sammies were dropping, wounded or killed by pieces of exploding shell. The Khaki Boys were receiving their baptism of fire in earnest.