The officers were waiting for us, curious to see these strange Americans who didn’t stay indoors when it rained. We made our way through sandy trench roads, untimbered ditches bordered with shaggy lavender poppies, green oats, and blue cornflowers clinging close to their sloping sides. Then we went into the trenches. There were miles and miles of them, zigzagging back and forth like the Greek border on a guest towel. At intervals big metal plates were placed near the top, flanked on each side by sand-bags. Through the observation holes I peeped out on No Man’s Land with the barbed-wire entanglements of the Germans beyond. Once they told me we were within a hundred and sixty feet of the enemy’s first-line trench. [Illustration: Bessie Beatty in the “dark forests at the front”] [Illustration: Lake Narach--a part of No Man’s Land] [Illustration: A soldiers’ shrine behind the lines] [Illustration: Captured barbed wire entanglement--Peter at the left] [Illustration: Blessing of the banners of the Battalion of Death] [Illustration: The Woman’s Regiment on review before its departure for the trenches] Our friends at the staff had not exaggerated the mud. The first time we came to a puddle, one of the officers lifted me up in his arms and carried me over. I protested that I was prepared for mud and did not mind it. Not understanding, he paid no attention. While I continued to protest, he carried me across three other puddles. Soon puddles disappeared--the trench became a continuous river of red mud. I escaped, and plunged in up to the top of my high boots. Twice we lost our way in communication-trenches and had to retrace our steps. Intermittent artillery fire punctuated the journey, and an officer who spoke a little English taught me to distinguish between “Baba-yaga” and the “flutes,” the “trunks” and the “suit-cases.” The big twelve-inch shells that carried wholesale destruction to the soldier and his carefully built trenches were named after the evil old Russian witch. The two-inch shell, whizzing through the air with a shrill whistle, was the flute. The nine- and ten-inch shells were trunks and suit-cases. At one point we discovered that a “suit-case” had preceded us and caved in the timbers. Once, when the lay of the land permitted, I was allowed to put my head over the trench to see the remains of a Russian village. All that was left were the skeletons of two Russian brick stoves and their chimneys. Electric light and kindred comforts such as they have in the enemy trenches were utterly lacking here. Mud! Mud! Here was nothing but mud! In one small trench-house--a burrow in the ground in the back-wall of the trench--three soldiers were playing cards; another was washing his shirt. Here and there we found men polishing their guns, and others brewing tea in aluminum pails over tiny fires. More of them were snatching a little sleep in order to be vigilant for the night.