The observation post once found, the next step is to make it tenable. It may be, if Fate is kindly disposed, the upper storey or garret of a house, from whence through a hole in the roof or walls the necessary view can be obtained. Happy the man who finds such available! The alternative is a straw-stack, on the top of which one must lie, covering oneself as much as possible with straw; a tree, amongst whose branches one must perch like a disconsolate and clumsy bird for whom there is no close time; or, worse than all, a spot in some particularly exposed trench, over whose parapet one pops one's head at the longest possible intervals for the shortest possible time, wondering the while whether the man opposite will pull his trigger before one gets it down again. Generally speaking, all these latter are to be avoided. Any sort of ruin is preferable, and the more of a ruin it is, the less likely is the enemy to sit up and take notice of it. It is as well to make it as bullet-proof as possible, by judicious strengthening with timbers and sandbags. Anything more ambitious is waste of time; if a shell of any size hits it directly, it is coming down and oneself inside it, despite the most elaborate fortifications, which in this case only serve to bury one the deeper. All one can hope for is a little box wherein to sit and observe, proof as far as possible from rain and bullets, and a dug-out for one's telephonists, in which one may take shelter oneself if shelled--that is, if one is lucky enough to get there in time. The most important thing to remember is that the exact appearance of every single object within view is known to the observers on the other side, and that consequently it is a remarkably sure form of suicide to alter the exterior view of anything that one proposes to occupy. A careful man, however, can establish quite a home-like resort almost anywhere. I have known observation posts within two or three hundred yards of the German trenches whose occupants have lived in profound peace and contentment for weeks at a time.