At night the stars are shining bright,
The old-world voice is whispering near,
We've heard it when the moon was light,
And London's streets were verydear;
But dearer now they are, sweetheart,
The 'buses running to the Strand,
But we're so far, so far apart,
Each lonely in a different land.

The night was murky and the air was splashed with rain. Following the line of trench I could dimly discern the figures of my mates pulling off their packs and fixing their bayonets. These glittered brightly as the dying fires from the trench braziers caught them, and the long array of polished blades shone into their place along the dark brown sandbags. Looking over the parados I could see the country in rear, dim in the hazy night. A white, nebulous fog lay on the ground and enveloped the lone trees that stood up behind. Here and there I could discern houses where no light shone, and where no people dwelt. All the inhabitants were gone, and in the village away to the right there was absolute silence, the stillness of the desert. To my mind came words I once read or heard spoken, "The conqueror turns the country into a desert, and calls it peace."

I clamped my bayonet into its standard and rested the cold steel on the parapet, the point showing over; and standing up I looked across to the enemy's ground.

"They're about three hundred yards away," somebody whispered taking his place at my side. "I think I can see their trenches."

An indistinct line which might have been a parapet of sandbags, became visible as I stared through the darkness; it looked very near, and my heart thrilled as I watched. Suddenly a stream of red sparks swooped upwards into the air and circled towards us. Involuntarily I stooped under cover, then raised my head again. High up in the air a bright flame stood motionless lighting up the ground in front, the space between the lines. Every object was visible: a tree stripped of all its branches stood bare, outlined in black; at its foot I could see the barbed wire entanglements, the wire sparkling as if burnished; further back was a ruined cottage, the bare beams and rafters giving it the appearance of a skeleton. A year ago a humble farmer might have lived there; his children perhaps played where dead were lying. I could see the German trench, the row of sandbags, the country to rear, a ruined village on a hill, the flashes of rifles on the left ... the flare died out in mid-air and darkness cloaked the whole scene again.

"What do you think of it, Stoner?" I asked the figure by my side.

"My God, it's great," he answered. "To think that they're over there, and the poor fellows lying out on the field!"

"They're their own bloomin' tombstones, anyway," said Bill, cropping up from somewhere.

"I feel sorry for the poor beggars," I said.

"They'll feel sorry for themselves, the beggars," said Bill.

"There, what's that?"

It crept up like a long white arm from behind the German lines, and felt nervously at the clouds as if with a hand. Moving slowly from North to South it touched all the sky, seeking for something. Suddenly it flashed upon us, almost dazzling our eyes. In a flash Bill was upon the banquette.

"Nark the doin's, nark it," he cried and fired his rifle. The report died away in a hundred echoes as he slipped the empty cartridge from its breech.

"That's one for them," he muttered.

"What did you fire at?" I asked.

"The blasted searchlight," he replied, rubbing his little potato of a nose. "That's one for 'em, another shot nearer the end of the war!"

"Did you hit it?" asked our corporal.

"I must 'ave 'it it, I fired straight at it."

"Splendid, splendid," said the corporal. "Its only about three miles away though."

"Oh, blimey!..."

Sentries were posted for the night, one hour on and two off for each man until dawn. I was sentry for the first hour. I had to keep a sharp look out if an enemy's working party showed itself when the rockets went up. I was to fire at it and kill as many men as possible. One thinks of things on sentry-go.

"How can I reconcile myself to this," I asked, shifting my rifle to get nearer the parapet. "Who are those men behind the line of sandbags that I should want to kill them, to disembowel them with my sword, blow their faces to pieces at three hundred yards, bomb them into eternity at a word of command. Who am I that I should do it; what have they done to me to incur my wrath? I am not angry with them; I know little of the race; they are utter strangers to me; what am I to think, why should I think?

"Bill," I called to the Cockney, who came by whistling, "what are you doing?"

"I'm havin' a bit of rooty (food) 'fore goin' to kip (sleep)."

"Hungry?

"'Ungry as an 'awk," he answered. "Give me a shake when your turn's up; I'm sentry after you."

There was a pause.

"Bill!"

"Pat?"

"Do you believe in God?"

"Well, I do and I don't," was the answer.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't 'old with the Christian business," he replied, "but I believe in God."

"Do you think that God can allow men to go killing one another like this?"

"Maybe 'E can't help it."

"And the war started because it had to be?

"It just came—like a war-baby."

Another pause.

"Yer write songs, don't yer?" Bill suddenly asked.

"Sometimes."

"Would yer write me one, just a little one?" he continued. "There was a bird (girl) where I used to be billeted at St. Albans, and I would like to send 'er a bit of poetry."

"You've fallen in love?" I ventured.

"No, not so bad as that—"

"You've not fallen in love."

"Well its like this," said my mate, "I used to be in 'er 'ouse and she made 'ome-made torfee."

"Made it well?"

"Blimey, yes; 'twas some stuff, and I used to get 'eaps of it. She used to slide down the banisters, too. Yer should 'ave seen it, Pat. It almost made me write poetry myself."

"I'll try and do something for you," I said. "Have you been in the dug-out yet?"

"Yes, it's not such a bad place, but there's seven of us in it," said Bill, "it's 'ot as 'ell. But we wouldn't be so bad if Z—— was out of it. I don't like the feller."

"Why?" I asked, Z—— was one of our thirteen, but he couldn't pull with us. For some reason or other we did not like him.

"Oh, I don't like 'im, that's all," was the answer. "Z—— tries to get the best of everything. Give ye a drink from 'is water bottle when your own's empty; 'e wouldn't. I wouldn't trust 'im that much." He clicked his thumb and middle finger together as he spoke, and without another word he vanished into the dug-out.

On the whole the members of our section, divergent as the poles in civil life, agree very well. But the same does not hold good in the whole regiment; the public school clique and the board school clique live each in a separate world, and the line of demarcation between them is sharply drawn. We all live in similar dug-outs, but we bring a new atmosphere into them. In one, full of the odour of Turkish cigarettes, the spoken English is above suspicion; in another, stinking of regimental shag, slang plays skittles with our language. Only in No. 3 is there two worlds blent in one; our platoon officer says that we are a most remarkable section, consisting of literary men and babies.

"Stand-to!"

I rose to my feet, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and promptly hit my head a resounding blow on the roof. The impact caused me to take a pace forward, and my boot rested on Stoner's face.

"Get out of it, you clumsy Irish beggar!" he yelled, jumping up and stumbling over Mervin, who was presently afoot and marching over another prostrate form.

"Stand-to! Stand-to!"

We shuffled out into the open, and took up our posts on the banquette, each in fighting array, equipped with 150 rounds of ball cartridge and entrenching tool handle on hip. In the trenches we always sleep in our equipment, by day we wear our bayonets in scabbard, at night the bayonets are always fixed.

"Where's Z——?" asked Stoner, as we stood to our rifles.

"In the dug-out," I told him, "he's asleep."

"'E is, is 'e?" yelled Bill, rushing to the door. "Come out of it lazybones," he called. "Show a leg at once, and grease to your gun. The Germans are on the top of us. Come out and get shot in the open."

Z—— stumbled from his bed and blinked at us as he came out.

"Is it true, Bill, are they 'ere?" he asked.

"If they were 'ere you'd be a lot of good, you would," said Bill. "Get on with the work."

In the dusk and dawning we stand-to in the trenches ready to receive the enemy if he attempt to charge. Probably on the other side he waits for our coming. Each stand-to lasts for an hour, but once in a fog we stood for half a day.

The dawn crept slowly up the sky, the firing on the left redoubled in intensity, but we could not now see the flashes from the rifles. The last star-rocket rose from the enemy's trench, hung bright in mid-air for a space, and faded away. The stretch of ground between the trenches opened up to our eyes. The ruined cottage, cold and shattered, standing mid-way, looked lonely and forbidding. Here and there on the field I could see grey, inert objects sinking down, as it were, on the grass.

"I suppose that's the dead, the things lying on the ground," said Stoner. "They must be cold poor devils, I almost feel sorry for them."

The birds were singing, a blackbird hopped on to the parapet, looked enquiringly in, his yellow bill moving from side to side, and fluttered away; a lark rose into the heavens warbling for some minutes, a black little spot on the grey clouds; he sang, then sank to earth again, finding a resting place amongst the dead. We could see the German trenches distinctly now, and could almost count the sandbags on the parapet. Presently on my right a rifle spoke. Bill was firing again.

"Nark the doin's, Bill, nark it," Goliath shouted, mimicking the Cockney accent. "You'll annoy those good people across the way."

"An if I do!"

"They may fire at you!" said monumental Goliath with fine irony.

"Then 'ere's another," Bill replied, and fired again.

"Don't expose yourself over the parapet," said our officer, going his rounds. "Fire through the loop-holes if you see anything to fire at, but don't waste ammunition."

The loop-holes, drilled in steel plates wedged in the sandbags, opened on the enemy's lines; a hundred yards of this front was covered by each rifle; we had one loop-hole in every six yards, and by day every sixth man was posted as sentry.

Stoner, diligent worker that he is, set about preparing breakfast when stand-to was over. In an open space at the rear of the dug-out he fixed his brazier, chopped some wood, and soon had the regimental issue of coke ablaze.

"I'll cut the bacon," I said, producing the meat which I had carried with me.

"Put the stuff down here," said Stoner, "and clear out of it."

Stoner, busy on a job, brooks no argument, he always wants to do the work himself. I stood aside and watched. Suddenly an object, about the size of a fat sausage, spun like a big, lazy bee through the air, and fifty paces to rear, behind a little knoll, it dropped quietly, as if selecting a spot to rest on.

"It's a bird," said Stoner, "one without wings."

It exploded with terrific force, and blew the top of the knoll into the air; a shower of dust swept over our heads, and part of it dropped into Stoner's fire.

"That's done it," he exclaimed, "what the devil was it?"

No explanation was forthcoming, but later we discovered that it was a bomb, one of the morning greetings that now and again come to us from the German trench mortars. This was the first we had seen; some of our fellows have since been killed by them; and the blue-eyed Jersey youth who was my friend at St. Albans, and who has been often spoken of in my little volume The Amateur Army, came face to face with one in the trenches one afternoon. It had just been flung in, and, accompanied by a mate, my friend rounded a traverse in a deserted trench and saw it lying peacefully on the floor.

"What is it?" he asked, coming to a halt.

"I don't know, it looks like a bomb!" was the sudden answering yell. "Run."

A dug-out was near, and both shoved in, the Jersey boy last. But the bomb was too quick for him. Half an hour later the stretcher-bearers carried him out, wounded in seventeen places.

Stoner's breakfast was a grand success. The tea was admirable and the bacon, fried in the mess-tin lids, was done to a turn. In the matter of food we generally fare well, for our boys get a great amount of eatables from home, also they have money to spend, and buy most of their food whenever that is possible.

In the forenoon Pryor and I took up two earthen jars, a number of which are supplied to the trenches, and went out with the intention of getting water. We had a long distance to go, and part of the way we had to move through the trenches, then we had to take the road branching off to the rear. The journey was by no means a cheery one; added to the sense of suffocation, which I find peculiar to the narrow trench, were the eternal soldiers' graves. At every turn where the parados opened to the rear they stared you in the face, the damp, clammy, black mounds of clay with white crosses over them. Always the story was the same; the rude inscription told of the same tragedy: a soldier had been killed in action on a certain date. He might have been an officer, otherwise he was a private, a being with a name and number; now lying cold and silent by the trench in which he died fighting. His mates had placed little bunches of flowers on his grave. Then his regiment moved off and the flowers faded. In some cases the man's cap was left on the black earth, where the little blades of kindly grass were now covering it up.

Most of the trench-dwellers were up and about, a few were cooking late breakfasts, and some were washing. Contrary to orders, they had stripped to the waist as they bent over their little mess-tins of soapy water; all the boys seemed familiar with trench routine. They were deep in argument at the door of one dug-out, and almost came to blows. The row was about rations. A light-limbed youth, with sloping shoulders, had thrown a loaf away when coming up to the trenches. He said his pack was heavy enough without the bread. His mates were very angry with him.

"Throwin' the grub away!" one of them said. "Blimey, to do a thing like that! Get out, Spud 'Iggles!"

"Why didn't yer carry the rooty yourself?"

"Would one of us not carry it?"

"Would yer! Why didn't ye take it then?"

"Why didn't ye give it to us?"

"Blimey, listen to yer jor!" said Spud Higgles, the youth with the sloping shoulders. "Clear out of it, nuff said, ye brainless twisters!"

"I've more brains than you have," said one of the accusers who, stripped to the waist, was washing himself.

"'Ave yer? so 'ave I," was the answer of the boy who lost the loaf, as he raised a mess tin of tea from the brazier.

"Leave down that mess-tin for a minute and I'll show yer who has the most brains," said the man who was washing, sweeping the soapsuds from his eyes and bouncing into an aggressive attitude, with clenched fists before him, in true fighting manner.

"Leave down my mess-tin then!" was the answer. "Catch me! I've lost things that way before, I'ave."

Spud Higgles came off victor through his apt sarcasm. The sarcastic remark tickled the listeners, and they laughed the aggressive soldier into silence.

A number of men were asleep, the dug-outs were crowded, and a few lay on the banquette, their legs stretched out on the sandbag platforms, their arms hanging loosely over the side, and their heads shrouded in Balaclava helmets. At every loop-hole a sentry stood in silent watch, his eyes rivetted on the sandbags ahead. Now and again a shot was fired, and sometimes, a soldier enthusiastic in a novel position, fired several rounds rapid across Noman's land into the enemy's lines, but much to the man's discomfiture no reply came from the other side.

"Firin' at beastly sandbags!" one of the men said to me, "Blimey, that's no game. Yer 'ere and the sandbags is there, you never see anything, and you've to fire at nothin'. They call this war. Strike me ginger if it's like the pictures in The Daily ——; them papers is great liars!"

"Do you want to kill men?" I asked.

"What am I here for?" was the rejoinder, "If I don't kill them they'll kill me."

No trench is straight at any place; the straight line is done away with in the makeup of a trench. The traverse, jutting out in a sharp angle to the rear, gives way in turn to the fire position, curving towards the enemy, and there is never more than twelve yards liable to be covered by enfilade fire. The traverse is the home of spare ammunition, of ball cartridge, bombs, and hand-grenades. These are stored in depots dug into the wall of the trench. There are two things which find a place anywhere and everywhere, the biscuit and the bully beef. Tins of both are heaped in the trenches; sometimes they are used for building dug-outs and filling revÊtements. Bully beef and biscuits are seldom eaten; goodness knows why we are supplied with them.

We came into the territory of another battalion, and were met by an officer.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"For water, sir," said Pryor.

"Have you got permission from your captain?"

"No, sir."

"Then you cannot get by here without it. It's a Brigade order," said the officer. "One of our men got shot through the head yesterday when going for water."

"Killed, sir," I enquired.

"Killed on the spot," was the answer.

On our way back we encountered our captain superintending some digging operation.

"Have you got the water already?" he asked.

"No, sir."

"How is that?"

"An officer of the —— wouldn't let us go by without a written permission."

"Why?"

"He said it was a Brigade order," was Pryor's naÏve reply. He wanted to go up that perilous road. The captain sat down on a sandbag, took out a slip of paper (or borrowed one from Pryor), placed his hat on his knee and the paper on his hat, and wrote us out the pass.

For twenty yards from the trench the road was sheltered by our parapet, past that lay the beaten zone, the ground under the enemy's rifle fire. He occupied a knoll on the left, the spot where the fighting was heavy on the night before, and from there he had a good view of the road. We hurried along, the jars striking against our legs at every step. The water was obtained from a pump at the back of a ruined villa in a desolate village. The shrapnel shivered house was named Dead Cow Cottage. The dead cow still lay in the open garden, its belly swollen and its left legs sticking up in the air like props in an upturned barrel. It smelt abominably, but nobody dared go out into the open to bury it.

The pump was known as Cock Robin Pump. A pencilled notice told that a robin was killed by a Jack Johnson near the spot on a certain date. Having filled our jars, Pryor and I made a tour of inspection of the place.

In a green field to the rear we discovered a graveyard, fenced in except at our end, where a newly open grave yawned up at us as if aweary of waiting for its prey.

"Room for extension here," said Pryor. "I suppose they'll not close in this until the graves reach the edge of the roadway. Let's read the epitaphs."

How peaceful the place was. On the right I could see through a space between the walls of the cottage the wide winding street of the village, the houses, cornstacks, and the waving bushes, and my soul felt strangely quieted. In its peace, in its cessation from labour, there was neither anxiety nor sadness, there remained rest, placid and sad. It seemed as if the houses, all intact at this particular spot, held something sacred and restful, that with them and in them all was good. They knew no evil or sorrow. There was peace, the desired consummation of all things—peace brought about by war, the peace of the desert, and death.

I looked at the first grave, its cross, and the rude lettering. This was the epitaph; this and nothing more:—
"An Unknown British Soldier."

On a grave adjoining was a cheap gilt vase with flowers, English flowers, faded and dying. I looked at the cross. One of the Coldstream Guards lay there killed in action six weeks before. I turned up the black-edged envelope on the vase, and read the badly spelt message, "From his broken-hearted wife and loving little son Tommy."

We gazed at it for a moment in silence. Then Pryor spoke. "I think we'll go back," he said, and there was a strained note in his voice; it seemed as if he wanted to hide something.

On our way out to the road we stopped for a moment and gazed through the shattered window of Dead Cow Cottage. The room into which we looked was neatly furnished. A round table with a flower vase on it stood on the floor, a number of chairs in their proper position were near the wall, a clock and two photos, one of an elderly man with a heavy beard, the other of a frail, delicate woman, were on the mantlepiece. The pendulum of the clock hung idle; it must have ceased going for quite a long time. As if to heighten a picture of absolute comfort a cat sat on the floor washing itself.

"Where will the people be?" I asked.

"I don't know," answered Pryor. "Those chairs will be useful in our dug-out. Shall we take them?"

We took one apiece, and with chair on our head and jar in hand we walked towards the trenches. The sun was out, and it was now very hot. We sweated. My face became like a wet sponge squeezed in the hand; Pryor's face was very red.

"We'll have a rest," he said, and laying down the jar he placed his chair in the road and sat on it. I did the same.

"You know Omar?" he asked.

"In my calf-age I doated on him," I answered.

"What's the calf-age?"

"The sentimental period that most young fellows go through," I said. "They then make sonnets to the moon, become pessimistic, criticise everything, and feel certain that they will become the hub of the universe one day. They prefer vegetable food to pork, and read Omar."

"Have you come through the calf-age?"

"Years ago! You'll come through, too, Pryor—"

A bullet struck the leg of my chair and carried away a splinter of wood. I got to my feet hurriedly. "Those trenches seem quite a distance away," I said, hoisting my chair and gripping the jar as I moved off, "and we'll be safer when we're there."

All the way along we were sniped at, but we managed to get back safely. Finding that our supply of coke ran out we used the chairs for firewood.