A barber would do a roaring trade if he came here, no one having shaved for weeks. Consequently, beards vary according to the age of the individual and the length of time he has not shaved. Mine, for instance, is something to gaze on and remember. They are not by any means what a writer in a lady’s novelette would describe as “a perfect dream.” They are scattered over my chivvy-chase in anything but order, nineteen on one side, fifteen on the other, and thirty-five on the chin, intermixed with a small smattering of down and dirt. Dirt, did I say? That doesn’t describe it. Water is at a discount, except for drinking: soap something to read about, and you wonder when you last used it, and when you will use it again. I can safely say, “Three weeks ago I used your soap; since then I have used no other.” And that’s not spinning you a yarn: _Sergt. Diggins, Leicestershire Regiment_. “Hallo, Old Tin Hat!” About four thousand Germans, backed up by heavy artillery play, tried to cross the river. There were only 300 Connaught Rangers all told who could be spared to keep them from fixing pontoons. Down to the river-bank they came, firing for all they were worth. The Irishmen were entrenched, and shouted across the river such greeting as “Hallo, old tin hat! When are you coming over?” and as soon as the Irishmen caught sight of the great boots of the Germans, Hibernian humour was irrepressible. The Rangers shouted, “We see you; it’s no good hiding there. We can see your ears sticking out!” Then the Rangers settled down to enjoy themselves, but a little later some more German infantry, which had crossed the river to another point, attempted to outflank them. It was terribly hard work, but the way the Irish stuck it would have taken your breath away: _A Nottingham Artilleryman_. Orange and Green Mick Clancy is that droll with his larking and bamboozling the Germans that he makes us nearly split our sides laughing at him and his ways. Yesterday he got a stick and put a cap on it so that it peeped above the trenches just like a man, and then the Germans kept shooting away at it until they must have used up tons of ammunition, and there was us all the time laughing at them. Tommy McQuiston, the big sergeant from the Black North, does nothing else morning, noon, and night but talk about Ned Carson and what he and his volunteers will do when they come out to fight the Germans. He has to put up with a lot of banter and back chat from us on the quiet in the sergeants’ mess, but, sure, though he’s mad Orange, he knows as well as anyone that we think no less of him for that. To get his dander up we tell him he’s going to be the door porter in the Dublin Parliament when the war’s over; but he never begrudges us our bit of diversion and devilment, and says more like he’ll end his days as a warder in a convict prison in charge of us: _Sergeant T. Cahill_. XVI. STORIES OF SACRIFICE