supply the deficiency--and the roof has collapsed, leaving only the chimney-stacks standing. "That might do for you," says our guide, "750th Battery used it for months." "How do we get there?"--for the country looks suspiciously open and deserted beyond our present retreat behind the hedge. "Oh, they don't often snipe here, we can walk across one at a time, or there's the communication trench," pointing to the streamlet. Heroes all, we elect a soldier's death rather than wet feet, and the first of our party starts to walk across the open. Before he reaches the shelter of the house, zip! comes a bullet with the ugly sound that marks the rifle fired in one's own direction. He makes a wild dive for shelter, from which he subsequently watches us as we wade, cursing its maker, knee-deep along the communication trench, and exhorts us to be careful to change our socks when we get home. After much argument, we decide that the house will suit us, and we splash homewards through our clay-coloured rivulet, by no means comforted by the thought that this is the only safe means of access to our new-found property, unless we propose to go there before daylight and stay till after dark. Small things provoke humour where amusements are few. I subsequently discovered that the depth of water in this trench was about two inches less than the length of my gum-boots, and that, therefore, by careful progression, I could navigate it safely. Whilst doing this one day, a large dog, presumably frightened by a shell bursting near him--although animals of all kinds get extraordinarily accustomed to such things as a rule--plunged into the water within a foot of me. The wave of his impact overflowed my boots--they have never been really dry since--and the splash soaked me to the skin. As I stood telling the world at large what I thought of war and dogs and trenches, a gentle voice, near at hand but unseen, demanded of me, in the catchword of the day, "Daddy, what did _you_ do in the great war?" A sense of humour will make, even of war, the finest game in the world.