I have never seen our lads so cheery as they are under great trials. You couldn’t help being proud of them if you saw them lying in the trenches cracking jokes or smoking while they take pot-shots at the Germans.... We have very little spare time now, but what we have we pass by smoking concerts, sing-songs, and story-telling. Sometimes we have football for a change, with a German helmet for a ball, and to pass the time in the trenches have invented the game of guessing where the next German shell will drop. Sometimes we have bets on it, and the man who guesses correctly the greatest number of times takes the stakes: _Sapper Bradle_. That “Interest” We are at present living in a school, and it seems funny to see so many soldiers’ beds on the floor. Our bedding (don’t laugh) is one waterproof sheet and our coat for a blanket; and still we are all as happy as sand-boys. We have been here some time now enjoying a rest, and at the same time getting fitted out again for the front. As you can imagine by reading the papers, nearly everything we had--horses, carts, wagons, cookers, and Maxims--were all blown in the air by German shells, but I am thankful to say we have got over all that, and shan’t forget to pay out Johnnie German with interest the first time we have the luck to meet him again, which we all hope won’t be long, as the sooner they are crushed the sooner we will get home again: _A Private of Keith, N.B._ Sad and Glad I am having a very interesting but a jolly hard time. About fourteen days ago I was chased four miles by German Lancers. They were on horses, and I was on my machine. The road was so bad they nearly had me, but I stuck to it and got away. It has been raining “cats and dogs” the last three days, and I am wet through, but happy and contented and very well. I shall have loads to tell you when I get home--tales, I fear, of pain, rapine, suffering, and all the horrors of a great war; but all the same I have some funny experiences to relate as well: _Special Dispatch-Rider A. R. Gurney_. Unexpected! On the Marne we spent two days on a long mine out towards the German lines, and just when we were getting to the close of our job we heard pickaxes going as fast and as hard as you like, and then the wall of clay before us gave way, showing a party of Germans at the same game! You never saw men more astonished in your life. “Fancy meeting you,” was written all over their faces, and they hadn’t quite recovered from their shock when we pounced on them. We had a pretty sharp scrap down there indeed, but we got the best of it, though we had four of our chaps laid out. One German devil was just caught in time with a fuse which he was going to apply with the mad idea of blowing us all up! _Sapper T. Gilhooly, Royal Engineers_. Tempting Grapes