Seems nothing, but you've no idea how odd it was to me; like dropping into a bit of England after about a century and a half in--in some special kind of hell, you know. Seemed so devilish odd that any mortal thing should be the same anywhere after that day. Not that it was the same, really. My rum case was in splinters, sticking up out of the porridge, and I found my map case there, torn off my belt as we got over at 3:25. "Won't be much left of that dugout," I thought, and I got my orderly to help me along to see. Couldn't find the blessed thing, anyhow. Went backward and forward three or four times. Then I spotted the head of a long trench stick that ---- had carried, sticking out through soft earth at the back of the trench. The orderly worked that stick about a little, and the earth fell away. It was just loose, dry stuff blown in off the front part of the roof of the dugout, and blocking the little entrance. Came away at a touch, almost, and there was the little hole you got in by. I worried through, somehow. I was really curious to see. If you'll believe me, the inside of that dugout--it looked like a drawing room to me, after the outside, you know--it was just exactly the same as when we'd left it the night before. There was the fine stove we made the café-au-lait on, with a half-empty box of matches balanced on the side of it, and the last empty tin of the coffee stuff we'd used, with the broken-handled spoon standing up in it, just as I'd left it; and ----'s notebook lying open and face down on an air pillow in his bunk--most extraordinarily homey. There I was looking at his notebook, and his hold-all, and poor ---- dead. Yes, I'd seen his body. And the rats, too; the rats were cavorting around on the felt of the roof, happy as sandboys. They didn't know anything about the Push, I suppose. By the way, we found only dead rats in the Boche trenches. They say it was our gas. I don't know; but there were thousands of dead rats there, and millions of live fleas. Very live they were. I must get. Cheero. THE SLAUGHTER AT DOUAUMONT _Told by a French Soldier_ Despite the horror of it, despite the ceaseless flow of blood, one wants to see. One's soul wants to feed on the sight of the brute Boches falling. I stopped on the ground for hours, and when I closed my eyes I saw the whole picture again. The guns are firing at 200 and 300 yards, and shrapnel is exploding with a crash, scything them down. Our men hold their ground; our machine guns keep to their work, and yet they advance.