Ordinarily the thought of dugouts was distasteful, but it seemed years since I had taken my boots off. Our platoon had lost heavily, mostly from disease. All the novelty had worn off the trench life. Instead of six noncoms, there were only three. Each of us was doing the work of two men. Our ration had been the eternal bully beef, biscuit, and jam. Our cooks did their best to make it palatable by cooking the beef in stew with some desiccated vegetables, but these were hard and tasteless. Most of us had got to the stage where the very sight of jam made us sick. That night, looking down through the ravine, I saw, winking and blinking cheerfully, the only light that brightened the Stygian darkness, the Red Cross of the hospital ships. I have wondered since if the entrance to heaven is illuminated with an electric Red Cross. There was not a man in the whole battalion who was really fit. Most of them had had a touch of one or more of the prevalent diseases. Stenlake, the young clergyman, who had been my dugout mate, was scarcely able to drag himself about the trench. And by this time we had the weather to contend with. It was nearing the middle of October, and the rainy season was almost upon us. Occasionally the sky darkened up to a heavy grayness that seemed to cover everything as with a pall. Following this came heavy, sudden squalls that swept through the trenches, drenching everything, and tearing blankets and equipments with them. Although the sun still continued to bore down unremittingly in the daytime, the nights had become bitterly cold, and to the tropical diseases were added rheumatism and pneumonia. On the men from Newfoundland the climate was especially telling. We had ceased to wonder at the crowd of men who reported sick each morning, and simply marveled that the number was not greater.