"I don't see," one of them was saying, "how they can get us at night." "It's this way," explained the other. "The cigarette makers send their snipers out sometime at night. Instead of going back that night they stay out for a week, or longer. All the ration Johnny Turk needs is a swallow of water, some onions, or olives, and a biscuit or two." "How is it," I asked, "we don't see them in the daytime?" "It's this way," said the A Company man. "He paints himself, his rifle, and his clothes green. Then he twists some twigs and branches around him and kids you he's a tree." "The way they do in this part of the trench," said another man who had been listening to the conversation, "is to work in pairs. They get a dugout somewhere where they can get a pretty good view of our trenches. They see where we move about most, and aim their machine gun at the top of the parapet. Then they clamp it down. At night when the sentries are posted, they simply press the trigger, and there are some more casualties." "You've got to hand it to Johnny Turk, just the same," said the first man. "One of them will stand up in his dugout in broad daylight, exposed from his waist up, and give you a chance to pot him, so that his mate can get you. We used to lose men that way first. As soon as we aimed, the second sniper turned his machine gun on us and got our man. Now we've found a better way. We stick a helmet up on top of a rifle just above the parapet, and fire from another part of the trench." "We've been having trouble with them down in dugouts," I said. "Some of the fellows say it's stray bullets, but it seems to me that they're going too fast to be spent. You can tell a bullet that's spent by the sound." One of the A Company sergeants who had been listening to the discussion joined in. "It's snipers all right," he said. "It's easy enough for a German officer to get into our trenches. Men are coming in all the time from working parties, and night patrols, and the engineers go back and forth every hour or so fixing up the barb wire. Only a little while ago they found one fellow. He had stripped a uniform from one of our dead, dressed himself in it, and walked up to our parapet one night. The sentry didn't know the difference, because the other fellow spoke good English, so he let him pass. All they have to do is say 'What ho,' or, 'Where's the Dublin's section of trench?' They can get by all right."