As we waited there, the mood of the men seemed to change. Their spirits began to rise. One jest started another, and soon we were all laughing at the memory of the German prisoners marching to the rear, holding up their trousers with both hands. Some of the men had taken the welcome opportunity of searching the prisoners while cutting their suspenders, and most of them were now puffing German cigarettes. One of them, Haeffle, offered me a piece of K. K. bread,1 black as ink. I declined with thanks, for I did n't like the looks of it. In the relaxation of the moment, nobody paid any attention to the shells falling outside the little open shelter, until Capdevielle proposed to crawl inside one of the German howitzers for security. Alas, he was too fat, and stuck! I myself hoped rather strongly that no shell would enter one of these pits in which the company had found shelter, because I knew there were several thousand rounds of ammunition piled near each piece hidden under the dirt, and an explosion might make it hot for us.

As we sat there, smoking and chatting, Delpenche, the homme des liaisons, as he was called, of the company, slid over the edge of the hollow and brought with him the order to leave the pit in column of one and to descend to the bottom of the incline, in line with some trees which he pointed out to us. There we were to deploy in open order and dig shelter trenches for ourselves though I can tell the reader that 'shelter' is a poor word to use in such a connection. It seems we had to wait for artillery before making the attack on Navarin itself. The trench 'Spandau,' so Delpenche told me, was being put into shape by the engineers and was already partially filled with troops who were coming up to our support. The same message had been car1 Krieg's Kartoffel Brot. - THE EDITORS.

ried to the other section. As we filed out of our pit, we saw them leaving theirs. In somewhat loose formation, we ran full-tilt down the hill, and, at the assigned position, flung ourselves on the ground and began digging like mad. We had made the last stretch without losing a man.

The Ferme Navarin was 200 metres from where we lay. From it came a heavy rifle and mitrailleuse fire, but we did not respond. We had something else to do. Every man had his shovel, and every man made the dirt fly. In what seemed half a minute we had formed a continuous parapet, 12 to 14 inches in height, and with our knapsacks placed to keep the dirt in position, we felt quite safe against infantry and machine-gun fire. Next, each man proceeded to dig his little individual niche in the ground, about a yard deep, 20 inches wide, and long enough to lie down in with comfort. Between each two men there remained a partition wall of dirt, from 10 to 15 inches thick, the usefulness of which was immediately demonstrated by a shell which fell into Blondino's niche, blowing him to pieces without injuring either of his companions to the right or the left.

We were comfortable and able to take pot shots at the Germans and to indulge again in the old trench game of sticking a helmet on a bayonet, pushing it a little above the dirt, and thus coaxing the Germans into a shot and immediately responding with 4-5 rifles. I looked at my watch. It said 10.45 A.M. just an hour and a half since we left our trenches and started on our charge; an hour and a half in which I had lived days and years.

I was pretty well tired out and would have given the world for a few hours' sleep. I called to Merrick to toss me Blondino's canteen. Mine was empty, and Blondino had left his behind when he departed with the 105-millimetre.

ways making a noise anyway.

The artillery fire died gradually down, and only one German battery was still sweeping us now. Our longrange pieces thundered behind us, and we could hear shells swooshing overhead in a constant stream on their way to the German target. Our fire was evidently beating down the German artillery fire excepting the single battery which devoted its attention to us. The guns were hidden, and our artillery did not seem able to locate them. Our aeroplanes, long hovering overhead, began to swoop dangerously low. A swift Morane plane swept by at a height of 200 metres over the pine forest where the German guns were hidden. We watched him as he returned safe to our lines.

Soon the order came down the line to deepen the trenches. It seemed we were to stay there until night.

The charge was over.

Time passed very slowly. I raised my arm to listen to my wrist-watch, but could n't hear it. Too many shells!

I knelt cautiously in my hole, and, looking over the edge, counted my section. There were but eighteen men. The Collettes, both corporals, were on the extreme left. Next came Capdevielle, Dowd, Zinn, Seeger, Scanlon, King, Subiron, Dubois, Corporal Mettayer, Haeffle, St. Hilaire, Schneli, De Sumera, Corporal Denis, Bur-bek-kar, and Birchler. On my left, two paces in the rear of the section, were Neumayer, Corporal Fourrier, and Sergeant Fourrier. Both these were supernumeraries. The second sergeant was over with Section II. I began now to realize our losses. Fully two-thirds of my section. were killed or wounded.

Throwing a lump of dirt at him to attract his attention, I motioned to him to roll on to the side of his hole and make a place for me. Then, with two quick jumps I landed alongside him. As I dropped we noticed spurts of dust rising from the dirt-pile in front of the hole and smiled. The Germans were too slow that time. Putting my lips to his ears, I shouted my questions and got my information.

This hole was quite large enough to accommodate both of us, so I decided to stay with him a while. Corporal Denis still had bread and cheese and shared it with me. We lunched in comfort.

Having finished, we rolled cigarettes. I had no matches, and as he reached his cigarette to me to light mine, he jumped almost to his feet, rolled on his face, and with both hands clasped to his face, tried to rise, but could n't. I've seen men who were knocked out in the squared ring do the same thing. With heads resting on the floor, they try to get up. They get up on their knees and seem to try to lift their heads, but can't. Denis tugged and tugged, without avail. I knelt alongside him and forced his hands from his face. He was covered with blood spurting out of a three-inch gash running from the left eye down to the corner of the mouth. A steel splinter had entered there and passed under the left ear. He must stay in the trench until nightfall.

I reached for his emergency dressing and as I made the motion felt a blow in the right shoulder. As soon as I had got Denis tied up and quiet, I unbuttoned my overcoat and shirt and picked a rifle-ball out of my own shoulder. The wound was not at all serious and bled but little. I congratulated myself, but wondered why the ball did not penetrate; and then I caught sight of De

showing a hole in the woodwork. The ball seemed to have passed through the magazine of the rifle, knocked out one cartridge, and then hit me.

When I was ready to return to my own hole, I rose a little too high and the Germans turned loose with a machine gun, but too high. I got back safely and lay down. It was getting very monotonous. To pass the time, I dug my hole deeper and larger, placing the loose dirt in front in a quarter-circle, until I felt perfectly safe against anything except a direct hit by a shell. There is but one chance in a thousand of that happening.

The day passed slowly and without mishap to my section. As night fell, one half of the section stayed on the alert four hours, while the other half slept. The second sergeant had returned and relieved me at twelve, midnight. I pulled several handfuls of grass, and with that and two overcoats I had stripped from dead Germans during the night, I made a comfortable bed and lay down to sleep. The bank was not uncomfortable. I was very tired, and dozed off immediately.

Suddenly I awoke in darkness. Everything was still, and I could hear my watch ticking, but over every part of me there was an immense leaden weight. I tried to rise, and could n't move. Something was holding me and choking me at the same time. There was no air to breathe. I set my muscles and tried to give a strong heave. As I drew in my breath, my mouth filled with dirt. I was buried alive!

It is curious what a man thinks about when he is in trouble. Into my mind shot memories of feats of strength performed. Why, I was the strongest man in the section. Surely I could lift myself out, I thought to myself, and my confidence began to return. I worked the dirt out of my mouth with the tip of my tongue and prepared myself men

tally for the sudden heave that would free me. A quick inhalation, and my mouth filled again with dirt. I could not move a muscle under my skin. And then I seemed to be two people. The 'I' who was thinking seemed to be at a distance from the body lying there.

My God! Am I going to die stretched out in a hole like this? I thought.

Through my mind flashed a picture of the way I had always hoped to die— the way I had a right to die: face to the enemy and running towards him. Why, that was part of a soldier's wages. I tried to shout for help, and more dirt entered my mouth! I could feel it gritting way down in my throat. My tongue was locked so I could not move. I watched the whole picture. I was standing a little way off and could hear myself gurgle. My throat was rattling, and I said to myself, 'That's the finish!' Then I grew calm. It was n't hurting so much, and somehow or other I seemed to realize that a soldier had taken a soldier's chance and lost. It was n't his fault. He had done the best he could. Then the pain all left me and the world went black. It was death.

Then somebody yelled, 'Hell! He bit my finger.' I could hear him.

"That's nothing,' said a voice I knew as Collette's. 'Get the dirt out of his mouth.'

Again a finger entered my throat, and I coughed spasmodically.

Some one was working my arms backward, and my right shoulder hurt me. I struggled up, but sank to my knees and began coughing up dirt.

'Here,' says Subiron, 'turn round and spit that dirt on your parapet. It all helps.' The remark made me smile. I was quite all right now, and Subiron, Collette, Joe, and Marcel returned to their holes. The Red Cross men were picking something out of the hole made by a 250-millimetre, they

told me. It was the remnant of the Corporal and Sergeant Fourrier, who had their trench to my left. It seems that a 10-inch shell had entered the ground at the edge of my hole, exploded a depth of two metres, tearing the corporal and sergeant to pieces, and kicking several cubic metres of dirt into and on top of me. Subiron and the Collettes saw what had happened, and immediately started digging me out. They had been just in time. It was n't long before my strength began to come back. Two stretcher-bearers came up to carry me to the rear, but I declined their services. There was too much going on. I dug out the German overcoats, recovered some grass, and, bedding myself down in the crater made by the shell, began to feel quite safe again. Lightning never strikes twice in the same spot.

However, that was n't much like the old-fashioned lightning. The enemy seemed to have picked upon my section. The shells were falling thicker and closer. Everybody was broad awake now, and all of us seemed to be waiting for a shell to drop in our holes. It was only a question of time before we should be wiped out. Haeffle called my attention to a little trench we all had noticed during the daytime, about forty metres in front of us. No fire had come from there, and it was evidently quite abandoned.

I took Haeffle and St. Hilaire with me and quietly crawled over to the trench, round the end of it, and started to enter at about the centre.

Then all of a sudden a wild yell came out of the darkness in front of us.

'Franzosen! Die Franzosen!'

We could n't see anything, nor they, either. There might have been a regiment of us or of them, for that matter. I screeched out in German, ‘Hände hoch!' and jumped into the trench followed by my two companions. As we

crouched in the bottom, I yelled again, 'Hände hoch oder wir schiessen!'

The response was the familiar 'Kameraden! Kameraden!' Haeffle gave an audible chuckle.

Calling again on my German, I ordered the men to step out of the trench with hands held high, and to march toward our line. I assured the poor devils we would not hurt them. They thought there was a division of us, more or less, and I don't know how much confidence they put in my assurance. Anyhow, as they scrambled over the parapet, I counted six of them prisoners to the three of us. Haeffle and St. Hilaire escorted them back and also took word to the second sergeant to let the section crawl, one after the other, up this trench to where I was.

One by one the men came on, crawling in single file, and I put them to work, carefully and noiselessly reversing the parapet. This German trench was very deep, with niches cut into the bank at intervals of one metre, permitting the men to lie down comfortably.

I wanted to know the time and felt along my belt. One of the straps had been cut clean through and my wallet, which had held 265 francs, had been neatly removed. Some one of my men, who had risked his life for mine with a self-devotion that could scarcely be surpassed, had felt that his need was greater than mine. Whoever he was, I bear him no grudge. Poor chap, if he lived he needed the money-and that day he surely did me a good turn. Besides, he was a member of the Legion.

I placed sentries, took care to find a good place for myself, and was just dropping off to sleep as Haeffle and St. Hilaire returned and communicated to me the captain's compliments and the assurance of a 'citation.'1

I composed myself to sleep and dropped off quite content.

1 Equivalent to mentioned in dispatches.'

I

'KITCHENER'S MOB' they were called in the early days of 1914, when the London hoardings were clamorous with the first calls for volunteers. The seasoned regulars of the first British expeditionary force said it patronizingly, the great British public, hopefully, the world at large, doubtfully. It was 'Kitchener's Mob' when there was but a scant sixty thousand under arms, with millions yet to come. 'Kitchener's Mob' it remains to-day, fighting in hundreds of thousands in France, Belgium, Africa, Turkey, Serbia - where not? And to-morrow, when the war is ended, who will come marching home again, old campaigners, war-worn remnants of once mighty armies? Kitchener's Mob.

It was on the 18th of August, 1914, that the mob-spirit gained its mastery over me. I joined an old-line London regiment, composed of men from all parts of the United Kingdom. There were North Countrymen, a few Welshmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, men from the Midlands and from the South of England, with more than enough Cockneys to identify and localize us. We were recruited from what is known in England as 'the lower middle classes.' In civilian life we had been tradesmen, shop assistants, railway and city employees, clerks, common laborers. Most of us, used to indoor life, needed months of the most rigorous kind of training before we could become physically fit, able to endure the hardships

of active service. During a period of nine months, a government, paternalistic in its solicitude for our welfare, schooled our bodies and trained our minds, whether we would or no. We were eager, impatient to be at the front. But we knew the one test to be met: efficiency. Therefore we worked with a will, and at last, to our joy, we were ordered to proceed on active service.

The machinery for moving troops in England works without the slightest friction. The men, transport, horses, commissariat, medical stores and supplies of a battalion are entrained in less than half an hour. Everything is timed to the minute. Battalion after battalion and train after train, our division moved out of Aldershot at half-hour intervals. Each train arrived at the port of embarkation on schedule time and pulled up on the docks by the side of a troop transport, great slate-colored liners taken out of the merchant service. Not a moment was lost. The last man was aboard, and the last wagon on the crane swinging up over the ship's side, as the next train came in.

Ship by ship we moved down the harbor in the twilight, the boys crowding the rail on both sides, taking their farewell look at England - home. It was the last farewell for hundreds of them. But there was no martial music, no waving of flags, there were no tearful good-byes. Our departure was as prosaic as our long period of training had been. We were each an infinitesimal part of a tremendous business organization which works without osten