If an advance has to be made from this position, the small trench will have served its purpose in giving temporary shelter. But there are times when troops have to consolidate positions won in this way, and on the site of these primitive trenches, more elaborate ones have to be made. At the battle of Neuve Chapelle the troops took up a certain line, dug themselves in in a rough way, and then during the night they set to work to construct the very trenches that still shelter them to this day. But it was due to the entrenching tools and the few sand bags that they were able to hold the line during the hours of daylight, and when the next morning dawned they had a fairly adequate protection. While the question of cover is very important, I do not wish to convey the impression that men should have this subject always in their minds. To use a rock or a tree or a mound of earth as a temporary shelter is one thing; but to continue to hide behind it at the time an advance is needed, is another. The man who hesitates to go forward when he has recovered his wind, but who takes care of his precious skin by remaining under cover, is worse than useless. The object of all troops must be to get into touch with the enemy and drive him out with the bayonet. Cover will help to keep a man alive for a little while to be able to do that work. When through adverse circumstances--usually the presence of the enemy in superior force--an army has to go to ground, it sets to work in dead earnest to build its trenches. We have learned that the best fortifications that can be got are those that are constructed in the earth. The guns of Verdun have practically never been in operation--indeed at the present time there are no guns in the old forts--and the reason for this is that earth works of such strength were thrown up at a distance from the forts that the Germans were never able to get their heavy guns to bear on them. The forts of Liége, and Namur, and Antwerp all fell before the great howitzers, but the earth works of Verdun were too much for them. It is doubtful if large forts will ever again be used in inland places, for the earthworks have proved their great superiority.