'On the Western Front there is nothing to report. All remains quiet.'—OFFICIAL DESPATCH.

The 7th (Territorial) King's Own Asterisks had 'taken over' their allotted portion of the trenches and were settling themselves in for the night. When the two facts are taken in conjunction that it was an extremely unpleasant night, cold, wet and bleak, and the 7th were thoroughly happy and would not have exchanged places with any other battalion in Flanders, it will be very plain to those who know their Front that the 7th K.O.A. were exceedingly new to the game. They were: and actually this was their first spell of duty in the forward firing trenches.

They had been out for some weeks, weary weeks, filled with the digging of communication trenches well behind the firing trenches, with drills and with various 'fatigues' of what they considered a navvying rather than a military nature. But every task piled upon their reluctant shoulders had been performed promptly and efficiently, and now at last they were enjoying the reward of their zeal—a turn in the forward trenches.

The men were unfeignedly pleased with themselves, with the British Army, and with the whole world. The non-coms, were anxious and desperately keen to see everything in apple-pie order. The Company officers were inclined to be fidgety, and the O.C. was worried and concerned to the verge of nerves. He pored over the trench maps that had been handed to him, he imagined assaults delivered on this point and that, hurried, at the point of the pencil, his supports along various blue and red lines to the threatened angles of the wriggly line that represented the forward trench, drew lines from his machine-gun emplacements to the red-inked crosses of the German wire entanglements, frowned and cogitated over the pencil crosses placed by the O.C. of the relieved battalion where the lurking-places of German maxims were suspected. Afterwards he made a long and exhaustive tour of the muddy trenches, concealing his anxiety from the junior officers, and speaking lightly and cheerfully to them—following therein truly and instinctively the first principle of all good commanders to show the greater confidence as they feel it the less. He returned to the Battalion Headquarters, situated in a very grimy cellar of a shell-wrecked house behind the support trenches, and partook of a belated dinner of tinned food flavoured with grit and plaster dust.

The signallers were established with their telephones at the foot of the stone stair outside the cellar door, and into this cramped 'exchange' ran the telephone wires from the companies in the trenches and from the Brigade Headquarters a mile or two back. Every word that the signallers spoke was plainly heard in the cellar, and every time the Colonel heard 'Hello! Yes, this is H.Q.,' he sat motionless waiting to hear what message was coming through. When his meal was finished he resisted an impulse to 'phone' all the forward trenches, asking how things were, unlaced his boots, paused, and laced them up again, lay down on a very gritty mattress in a corner of the cellar, and tried to sleep. For the first hour every rattle of rifle fire, every thud of a gun, every call on the telephone brought him up on his pillow, his ears straining to catch any further sound. After about the tenth alarm he reasoned the matter out with himself something after this fashion:—

'The battalion is occupying a position that has not been attacked for weeks, and it is disposed as other Regular battalions have been, and no more and no less effectually than they. There isn't an officer or man in the forward trenches who cannot be fully trusted to keep a look-out and to resist an attack to the last breath. There is no need to worry or keep awake, and to do so is practically admitting a distrust of the 7th K.O.A. I trust them fully, and therefore I ought to go to sleep.'

Whereupon the Colonel sat up, took off his wet boots, lay down again, resolutely closed his eyes—and remained wide awake for the rest of the night.

But if there be any who feel inclined to smile at the nervousness of an elderly, stoutish, and constitutionally easy-going Colonel of Territorials, I would remind them of a few facts. The Colonel had implicit faith in the stout-heartedness, the spirit, the fighting quality of his battalion. He had had the handling and the training of them ever since mobilisation, and he knew every single man of them as well as they knew themselves. They had done everything asked of them and borne light-heartedly rough quarters, bad weather, hard duties. But—and one must admit it a big and serious 'but'—to-night might be their real and their first testing in the flame and fire of War.

Even as no man knows how he will feel and behave under fire, until he has been under fire, so no regiment or battalion knows. The men were razor-keen for action, but that very keenness might lead them into a rashness, a foolhardiness, which would precipitate action. The Colonel believed they would stand and fight to the last gasp and die to the last man rather than yield a yard of their trench. He believed that of them even as he believed it of himself—but he did not know it of them any more than he knew it of himself. Men, apparently every bit as good as him, had before now developed some 'white streak,' some folly, some stupidity, in the stress and strain of action. Other regiments, apparently as sound as his, had in the records of history failed or broken in a crisis. He and his were new and untried, and military commanders for innumerable ages had doubted and mistrusted new and untried troops.

Well . . . he had done his best, and at least the next twenty-four hours should show him how good or how bad that best had been. But meantime let no one blame him for his anxiety or nervousness.

And meantime the 7th Asterisks, serenely unaware of their Commanding Officer's worry and doubt—and to be fair to them and to him it must be stated that they would have flouted scornfully any suggestion that he had held them—joyfully set about the impossible task of making themselves comfortable, and the congenial one of making the enemy extremely uncomfortable. The sentries were duly posted, and spent an entirely unnecessary proportion of their time peering over the parapet.

There were more Verey pistol lights burnt during the night than would have sufficed a trench-hardened battalion for a month, and the Germans opposite, having in hand a little job of adding to their barbed-wire defences, were puzzled and rather annoyed by the unwonted display of fireworks. They foolishly vented their annoyance by letting off a few rounds of rapid fire at the opposition, and the 7th Asterisks eagerly accepted the challenge, manned their parapets and proceeded to pour a perfect hurricane of fire back to the challengers. The Germans, with the exception of about a dozen picked sharp-shooting snipers, ceased to fire and took careful cover.

The snipers, daring the Asterisks' three minutes of activity, succeeded in scoring seven hits, and the Asterisks found themselves in possession of a casualty list of one killed and six wounded before the Company and platoon commanders had managed to stop the shooting and get the men down under cover.

When the shooting had ceased and the casualties had been cleared out on their way to the dressing station, the Asterisks recharged their rifle-magazines and spent a good hour discussing the incident, those men who had been beside the casualties finding themselves and their narratives of how it happened in great demand.

And one of the casualties, having insisted, when his slight wound was dressed, on returning to the trench, had to deliver a series of lecturettes on what it felt like, what the Medical said, how the other fellows were, how the dressing station was worked, and similar subjects, with pantomimic illustrations of how he was holding his rifle when the bullet came through the loophole, and how he was still fully capable of continuing to hold it.

A heavy shower dispersed the audiences, those of the men who were free to do so returning to muddy and leaky dug-outs, and the remainder taking up their positions at the parapet. There was as much chance of these latter standing on their heads as there was of their going to sleep, but the officers made so many visiting rounds to be certain of their sentries' wakefulness, and spent so long on each round and on the fascinating peeps over into 'the neutral ground,' that the end of one round was hardly completed before it was time to begin the next.

Occasionally the Germans sent up a flare, and every man and officer of the K.O.A. who was awake stared out through the loopholes in expectation of they knew not what. They also fired off a good many 'pistol lights,' and it was nearly 4 A.M. before the Germans ventured to send out their working-party over the parapet. Once over, they followed the usual routine, throwing themselves flat in the mud and rank grass when a light flared up and remaining motionless until it died out, springing to silent and nervous activity the instant darkness fell, working mostly by sense of touch, and keeping one eye always on the British parapet for the first hint of a soaring light.

The 'neutral ground' between the trenches was fairly thickly scattered over with dead, the majority of them German, and it was easy enough for an extra score or so of men, lying prone and motionless as the dead themselves, to be overlooked in the shifting light. The work was proceeding satisfactorily and was almost completed when a mischance led to the exposure of the party.

One of the workers was in the very act of crawling over the parapet when a British light flared. Half-way over he hesitated one moment whether to leap back or forward, then hurriedly leapt down in front of the parapet and flung himself flat on his face. He was just too late. The lights revealed him exactly as he leapt, and a wildly excited King's Own Asterisk pulled back the cut-off of his magazine and opened rapid fire, yelling frenziedly at the same time that they were coming—were coming—were attacking—were charging—look out!

Every K.O.A. on his feet lost no time in joining in the 'mad minute' and every K.O.A. who had been asleep or lying down was up in a twinkling and blazing over the parapet before his eyes were properly opened. The machine-gun detachment were more circumspect if no less eager. The screen before the wide loophole was jerked away and the fat barrel of the maxim peered out and swung smoothly from side to side, looking for a fair mark.

It had not long to wait. The German working-party 'stuck it out' for a couple of minutes, but with light after light flaming into the sky and exposing them pitilessly, with the British trench crackling and spitting fire from end to end, with the bullets hissing and whistling over them, and hailing thick amongst them, their nerves gave and broke; in a frantic desire for life and safety they flung away the last chance of life and safety their prone and motionless position gave them.

They scrambled to their feet, a score of long-cloaked, crouching figures, glaringly plain and distinct in the vivid light, and turned to run for their trench. The sheeting bullets caught half a dozen and dropped them before they had well stood up, stumbled another two or three over before they could stir a couple of paces, went on cutting down the remainder swiftly and mercilessly. The remainder ran, stumbling and tripping and staggering, their legs hampered by their long coats, their feet clogged and slipping in the wet, greasy mud. The eye glaring behind the swinging sights of the maxim caught that clear target of running figures, the muzzle began to jet forth a stream of fire and hissing bullets, the cartridge belt to click, racing through the breach.

The bullets cut a path of flying mud-splashes across the bare ground to the runners, played a moment about their feet, then lifted and swept across and across—once, twice, thrice. On the first sweep the thudding bullets found their targets, on the second they still caught some of them, on the third they sang clear across and into the parapet, for no figures were left to check their flight. The working party was wiped out.

It took the excited riflemen another minute or two to realise that there was nothing left to shoot at except an empty parapet and some heaps of huddled forms; but the pause to refill the empty magazines steadied them, and then the fire died away.

The whole thing was over so quickly that the rifle fire had practically ceased before the Artillery behind had time to get to work, and by the time they had flung a few shells to burst in thunder and lightning roar and flash over the German parapet, the storm of rifle fire had slackened and passed. Hearing it die away, the gunners also stopped, reloaded, and laid their pieces, waited the reports of their Forward Officers, and on receiving them turned into their dug-outs and their blankets again.

But the batteries covering the front held by the Asterisks remained by their guns and continued to throw occasional rounds into the German trenches. Their Forward Officers had passed on the word received from the Asterisks of a sharp attack quickly beaten back—that being the natural conclusion drawn from that leaping figure on the parapet and the presence of Germans in the open—and the guns kept up a slow rate of fire more with the idea of showing the enemy that the defence was awake and waiting for them than of breaking up another possible attack. The battalions of Regulars to either side of the Asterisks had more correctly diagnosed the situation as 'false alarm' or 'ten rounds rapid on working parties,' and their supporting Artillery did no more than carry on their usual night firing.

The result of it all was that the Asterisks throughout the night enjoyed the spectacle of some very pretty artillery fire in the dark on and over the trenches facing them, and also the much less pleasing one of German shells bursting in the British trenches, and especially in those of the K.O.A. They had the heaviest share on the simple and usual principle of retaliation, whereby if our Section A of trenches is shelled we shell the German section facing it, and vice versa.

The fire was by no means heavy as artillery fire goes these days, and at first the Asterisks were not greatly disturbed by it. But even a rate of three or four shells every ten or fifteen minutes is galling, and necessitates the keeping of close cover or the loss of a fair number of men. It took half a dozen casualties to impress firmly on the Asterisks the need of keeping cover. Shell casualties have an extremely ugly look, and some of the Asterisks felt decidedly squeamish at sight of theirs—especially of one where the casualty had to be collected piece by piece, and removed in a sack.

For an hour before dawn the battalion 'stood to,' lining the trench with loaded rifles ready after the usual and accepted fashion, shivering despite their warm clothing and mufflers, and woollen caps and thick great-coats in the raw-edged cold of the breaking day. For an hour they stood there listening to the whine of overhead bullets and the sharp 'slap' of well-aimed ones in the parapet, the swish and crash of shells, the distant patter of rifle fire and the boom of the guns.

That hour is perhaps always the worst of the twenty-four. The rousing from sleep, the turning out from warm or even from wet blankets, the standing still in a water-logged trench, with everything—fingers and clothes and rifle and trench-sides—cold and wet and clammy to the touch, and smeared with sticky mud and clay, all combine to make the morning 'stand to arms' an experience that no amount of repetition ever accustoms one to or makes more bearable.

Even the Asterisks, fresh and keen and enthusiastic as they were, with all the interest that novelty gave to the proceedings, found the hour long-drawn and trying; and it was with intense relief that they saw the frequently consulted watches mark the finish of the time, and received the word to break off from their vigil.

They set about lighting fires and boiling water for tea, and frying a meagre bacon ration in their mess-tin lids, preparing and eating their breakfast. The meal over, they began on their ordinary routine work of daily trench life.

Picked men were told off as snipers to worry and harass the enemy. They were posted at loopholes and in various positions that commanded a good outlook, and they fired carefully and deliberately at loopholes in the enemy parapet, at doors and windows of more or less wrecked buildings in rear of the German lines, at any and every head or hand that showed above the German parapet. In the intervals of firing they searched through their glasses every foot of parapet, every yard of ground, every tree or bush, hayrick or broken building that looked a likely spot to make cover for a sniper on the other side. If their eye caught the flash of a rifle, the instantly vanishing spurt of haze or hot air—too thin and filmy to be called smoke—that spot was marked down, long and careful search made for the hidden sniper, and a sort of Bisley 'disappearing target' shoot commenced, until the opponent was either hit or driven to abandon his position.

The enemy's snipers were, of course, playing exactly the same game, and either because they were more adept at it, or because the Asterisks' snipers were more reluctant to give up a position after it was 'spotted' and hung on gamely, determined to fight it out, a slow but steady tally was added to the Asterisks' casualty list.

Along the firing and communication trenches parties set to work of various sorts, bailing out water from the trench bottom, putting in brushwood or brick foundations, building up and strengthening dug-outs and parapets, filling sandbags in readiness for night work and repairs on any portion damaged by shell fire.

By now they were learning to keep well below the parapet, not to linger in portions of the communication trench that were enfiladed by shrapnel, to stoop low and pass quickly at exposed spots where the snipers waited a chance to catch an unwary head. They had learned to press close and flat against the face of the trench or to get well down at the first hint of the warning rush of an approaching shell; they were picking up neatly and quickly all the worst danger spots and angles and corners to be avoided except in time of urgent need.

One thing more was needed to complete their education in the routine of trench warfare, and the one thing came about noon just as the Asterisks were beginning to feel pleasant anticipations of the dinner hour. A faint and rather insignificant 'bang' sounded out in front. The Asterisks never even noticed it, but next moment when something fell with a thudding 'splosh' on the wet ground behind the trench the men nearest the spot lifted their heads and stared curiously. Another instant and with a thunderous roar and a leaping cloud of thick smoke the bomb burst. The men ducked hastily, but one or two were not quick enough or lucky enough to escape, although at that short distance they were certainly lucky in escaping with nothing worse than flesh wounds from the fragments of old iron, nails and metal splinters that whirled outwards in a circle from the bursting bomb. Everyone heard the second shot and many saw the bomb come over in a high curve.

As it dropped it appeared to be coming straight down into the trench and every man had an uncomfortable feeling that the thing was going to fall directly on him. Actually it fell short and well out in front of the trench and only a few splinters and a shower of earth whizzed over harmlessly high.

The third was another 'over' and the fourth another 'short' and the Asterisks, unaware of the significance of the closing-in 'bracket' began to feel relief and a trifle of contempt for this clumsy slow-moving and visible missile. Their relief and contempt vanished for ever when the fifth bomb fell exactly in the trench, burst with a nerve-shattering roar, and filled the air with whistling fragments and dense choking, blinding smoke and stench.

Having got their range and angle accurately, the Germans proceeded to hurl bomb after bomb with the most horrible exactness and persistency. For two hundred yards up and down the trench there was no escape from the blast of the bursts. It was no good crouching low, or flattening up against the parapet; for the bombs dropped straight down and struck out backwards and sideways and in every direction.

Even the roofed-in dug-outs gave no security. A bomb that fell just outside the entrance of one dug-out, riddled one man lying inside, and blew another who was crouching in the entrance outwards bodily across the trench, stunning him with the shock and injuring him in a score of places. Plenty of the bombs fell short of the trench, but too many fell fairly in it. When one did so there was only one thing to do—to throw oneself violently down in the mud of the trench bottom, and wait, heart in mouth, for the crash of the explosion.

The Artillery, on being appealed to, pounded the front German trench for an hour, but made no impression on the trench-mortar. The O.C. of the Asterisks telephoned the Brigade asking what he was to do to stop the torment and destruction, and in reply was told he ought to bomb back at the bomb-throwers. But the Asterisks had already tried that without any success. The distance was too great for hand bombs to reach, and the men appeared to make poor shooting with the rifle grenades.

'Why not try the trench-mortar?' asked the Brigade; to which the harassed Colonel replied conclusively because he didn't possess one, hadn't a bomb for one, and hadn't a man or officer who knew how to use one.

The Brigade apparently learnt this with surprise, and replied vaguely that steps would be taken, and that an officer and detachment of his battalion must receive a course of instruction.

The Colonel replied with spirit that he was glad to hear all this, but in the meantime what was he to do to prevent his battalion being blown piecemeal out of their trenches?

It all ended eventually in the arrival of a trench-mortar and a pile of bombs from somewhere and a very youthful and very much annoyed Artillery subaltern from somewhere else. The Colonel was most enormously relieved by these arrivals, but his high hopes were a good deal dashed by the artilleryman.

That youth explained that he was in effect totally ignorant of trench-mortars and their ways, that he had been shown the thing a week ago, had it explained to him—so far as such a rotten toy could be explained—and had fired two shots from it. However, he said briskly, if off-handedly, he was ready to have a go with it and see what he could do.

The trench-mortar was carried down to the forward trench, and on the way down behind it the youngster discoursed to the O.C. of the Asterisks on the 'awful rot' of a gunner officer being chased off on to a job like this—any knowledge of gunnery being entirely superfluous and, indeed, wasted on such a kid's toy. And the O.C., looking at the trench-mortar being prepared, made a mental remark about 'the mouths of babes' and the wise words thereof.

The weapon is easily described. It was a mere cylinder of cast iron, closed at one end, open at the other, and with a roomy 'touch-hole' at the closed end. The carriage consisted of two uprights on a base, with mortar between them and pointing up at an angle of about forty-five degrees.

The charge was little packets of gunpowder tied up in paper in measured doses. The bomb was a tin-can—an empty jam-tin, mostly—filled with a bursting charge and fragments of metal, and with an inch or so of the fuse protruding.

The piece was loaded by throwing a few packets of powder into the muzzle, poking them with a piece of stick to burst the paper, and carefully sliding the bomb down on top of the charge. A length of fuse was poked into the touch-hole and the end lit, sufficient length being given to allow the lighter to get round the nearest corner before the mortar fired.

The whole thing was too rubbishy and cheaply and roughly made to have been fit for use as a 'kid's toy,' as the subaltern called it. To imagine it being used as a weapon of precision in a war distinguished above all others as one of scientifically perfect weapons and implements was ridiculous beyond words.

The Colonel watched the business of loading and laying with amazement and consternation.

'Is it possible to—er—hit anything with that?' he asked.

'Well, more or less,' said the youthful subaltern doubtfully. 'There's a certain amount of luck about it, I believe.'

'But why on earth,' said the Colonel, beginning to wax indignant, 'do they send such a museum relic here to fight a reasonably accurate and decidedly destructive mortar?'

The subaltern chuckled.

'That's not any museum antique,' he said. 'That's a Mortar, Trench, Mark Something or other—the latest, the most modern weapon of the kind in the British Army. It was made, I believe, in the Royal Arsenal, and it is still being made and issued for use in the field—the Engineers collecting the empty jam-pots and converting them to bombs. They've only had four or five months, y'see, to evolve a—— look out, sir! Here's one of theirs!'

The resulting explosion flung a good deal of mud over the parapet on to the Colonel and the subaltern, and raised the youth to wrath.

'Beasts!' he said angrily, and poked a length of fuse in the touch-hole. 'Get away round the traverse!' he ordered the mob near him. 'And you'd better go, too, sir—as I will when I've touched her off. Y'see, she's just as liable to explode as not, and, if she does, she'd make more mess in this trench than I can ever hope she will in a German one.'

The Colonel retired round the nearest traverse, and next moment the lieutenant plunged round after him just as the mortar went off with a resounding bang. Every man in the trench watched the bomb rise, twirling and twisting, and fall again, turning end over end towards the German trench.

At about the moment he judged it should burst, the lieutenant poked his head up over the parapet, but bobbed down hurriedly as a couple of bullets sang past his ear.

'Pretty nippy lot across there!' he said. 'I must find a loophole to observe from. And p'r'aps you'd tell some of your people to keep up a brisk fire on that parapet to stop 'em aiming too easy at me. Now we'll try another.'

At the next bang from the opposite trench he risked another quick peep over and this time ducked down with an exclamation of delight.

'I've spotted him.' he said. 'Just caught the haze of his smoke. Down the trench about fifty yards. So we'll try trail-left a piece—or would if this old drain-pipe had a trail.'

He relaid his mortar carefully, and fired again. Having no sights or arrangement whatever for laying beyond a general look over the line of its barrel and a pinch more or less of powder in the charge, it can only be called a piece of astounding good luck that the jam-pot bomb fell almost fairly on the top of the German mortar. There was a most satisfying uproar and eddying volume of smoke and eruption of earth, and the lieutenant stared through a loophole dumb-founded with delight.

'I'll swear,' he said, 'that our old Plum-and-Apple pot never made a burst that big. I do believe it must have flopped down on the other fellow and blown up one or two of his bombs same time. I say, isn't that the most gorgeous good luck? Well, good enough to go on with. We'll have a chance for some peaceful practice now?'

Apparently, since the other mortar ceased to fire, it must have been put out of action, and the lieutenant spent a useful hour pot-shotting at the other trench.

The shooting was, to say the least, erratic. With apparently the same charge and the same tilt on the mortar, one bomb would drop yards short and another yards over. If one in three went within three yards of the trench, if one in six fell in the trench, it was, according to the lieutenant, a high average, and as much as any man had a right to expect. But at the end of the hour, the Asterisks, who had been hugely enjoying the performance, and particularly the cessation of German bombs, were horrified to hear a double report from the German trench, and to see two dark blobs fall twinkling from the sky.

The following hour was a nightmare. Their trench-mortar was completely out-shot. Those fiendish bombs rained down one after the other along the trench, burst in devastating circles of flame and smoke and whirling metal here, there, and everywhere.

The lieutenant replied gallantly. A dozen times he had to shift position, because he was obviously located, and was being deliberately bombarded.

But at last the gunner officer had to retire from the contest. His mortar showed distinct signs of going to pieces—the muzzle-end having begun to split and crack, and the breech-end swelling in a dangerous-looking bulge.

'Look at her,' said the lieutenant disgustedly. 'Look at her opening out an' unfolding herself like a split-lipped ox-eyed daisy. Anyhow, this is my last bomb, so the performance must close down till we get some more jam-pots loaded up.'

The enemy mortars were evidently of better make, for they continued to bombard the suffering Asterisks for another full hour. They did a fair amount of damage to the trench and parapet, and the Germans seized the opportunity of the Asterisks' attempted repairs to put in some maxim practice and a few rounds of shrapnel.

Altogether, the 7th King's Own Asterisks had a lively twenty-four hours of it, and their casualties were heavy, far beyond the average of an ordinary day's trench work. Forty-seven they totalled in all—nine killed and thirty-six wounded.

They were relieved that night, this short spell being designed as a sort of introduction or breaking in or blooding to the game.

Taking it all round, the Asterisks were fully pleased with themselves. Their Colonel had complimented them on their behaviour, and they spent the next few days back in the reserve, speculating on what the papers would say about them. The optimists were positive they would have a full column at least.

'We beat on an attack,' they said. 'There's sure to be a bit in about that. And look at the way we were shelled, and our Artillery shelled back. There was a pretty fair imitation of a first-class battle for a bit, and most likely there would have been one if we hadn't scuppered that attack. And don't forget the bombing we stuck out—and the casualties. Doesn't every one tell us they were extra heavy? And I believe we are about the first Terrier lot to be in a heavy "do" in the forward trenches. You see—it'll be a column at least, and may be two.'

The pessimists declared that two or three paragraphs were all they could expect, on account of the silly fashion of not publishing details of engagements. 'And whatever mention we do get,' they said, 'won't say a word about the K.O.A. It'll just be a "battalion," or maybe "a Territorial battalion," and no more.'

'Anyway,' said the optimists, 'we'll be able to write home to our people and our pals, and tell them it was us, though the despatches don't mention us by name.'

But optimists and pessimists alike grabbed the papers that came to hand each day, and searched eagerly for the Eye-witness' reports, or the official despatch or communiquÉ. At last there reached them the paper with the communiquÉ dated the day after their day in the trenches. They stared at it, and then hurried over the other pages, turned back, and examined them carefully one by one. There were columns and columns about a strike and other purely domestic matters at home, but not a word about the 7th Kings Own Asterisks (Territorial), not a word about their nine dead and thirty-six wounded—not a word; and, more than that, barely a word about the Army, or the Front, or the War.

'There might be no bloomin' war at all to look at this paper,' said one in disgust. 'There's plenty about speeding-up the factories (an' it's about time they speeded up some one to make something better'n that drain-pipe or jam-pot bomb we saw), plenty about those loafin' swine at home, but not a bloomin' word about us 'ere. It makes me fair sick.'

'P'raps there wasn't time to get it in,' suggested one of the most persistent optimists. 'P'raps they'll have it in to-morrow.'

'P'raps,' said the disgusted one contemptuously, 'an' p'raps not. Look at the date of that despatch. Isn't that for the day we was in the thick of it? An' look what it says. Don't that make you sick?'

And in truth it did make them 'sick.' For their night and day of fighting—their defeat of an attack, their suffering under shell, bullet, and bomb, their nine killed and their thirty-six wounded—were all ignored and passed by.

The despatch for that day said simply: 'On the Western Front there is nothing to report. All remains quiet.'