Before any charge the machine guns must be "killed." No initiative of pioneer or Indian scout surpassed that exhibited in conquering machine-gun positions. When a big game hunter tells you about having stalked tigers, ask him if he has ever stalked a machine gun to its lair. As for the nature of the lair, here is one where a Briton "dug himself in" to be ready to repulse any counter-attack to recover ground that the British had just won. Some layers of sandbags are sunk level with the earth with an excavation back of them large enough for a machine-gun standard and to give the barrel swing and for the gunner, who back of this had dug himself a well four or five feet deep of sufficient diameter to enable him to huddle at the bottom in "stormy weather." He was general and army, too, of this little establishment. In the midst of shells and trench mortars, with bullets whizzing around his head, he had to keep a cool aim and make every pellet which he poured out of his muzzle count against the wave of men coming toward him who were at his mercy if he could remain alive for a few minutes and keep his head. He must not reveal his position before his opportunity came. All around where this Briton had held the fort there were shell-craters like the dots of close shooting around a bull's-eye; no tell-tale blood spots this time, but a pile of two or three hundred cartridge cases lying where they had fallen as they were emptied of their cones of lead. Luck was with the occupant, but not with another man playing the same game not far away. Broken bits of gun and fragments of cloth mixed with earth explained the fate of a German machine gunner who had emplaced his piece in the same manner. Before a charge, crawl up at night from shell-crater to shell-crater and locate the enemy's machine guns. Then, if your own guns and the trench mortars do not get them, go stalking with supplies of bombs and remember to throw yours before the machine gunner, who also has a stock for such emergencies, throws his. When a machine gun begins rattling into a company front in a charge the men drop for cover, while officers consider how to draw the devil's tusks. Arnold von Winkelried, who gathered the spears to his breast to make a path for his comrades, won his glory because the fighting forces were small in his day. But with such enormous forces as are now engaged and with heroism so common, we make only an incident of the officer who went out to silence a machine gun and was found lying dead across the gun with the gunner dead beside him. VI--TALKS WITH THE MEN IN THE REAR