Well, this persistent shelling of the left-hand end of our trenches meant a persistent readjustment of our parapets, and putting things back again.  Each morning the Boches would knock things down, and each evening we would put them up again.  Our soldiers are only amused by this procedure.  Their humorously cynical outlook at the Boche temper renders them impervious to anything the Germans can ever do or think of.  Their outlook towards a venomous German attempt to do something “frightfully” nasty, is very similar to a large and powerful nurse dealing with a fractious child—­sort of:  “Now, then, Master Frankie, you mustn’t kick and scream like that.”

One can almost see a group of stolid, unimaginative, non-humorous Germans, taking all things with their ridiculous seriousness, sending off their shells, and pulling hateful faces at the same time.  You can see our men sending over a real stiff, quietening answer, with a sporting twinkle in the eye, perhaps jokingly remarking, as a shell is pushed into the gun, “‘Ere’s one for their Officers’ Mess, Bert.”

On several evenings I had to go round and arrange for the reconstruction of the ruined parapet or squashed-in dug-outs.  It was during one of these little episodes that I felt the spirit of my drawing, “There goes our blinking parapet again,” which I did sometime later.  I never went about looking for ideas for drawings; the whole business of the war seemed to come before me in a series of pictures.  Jokes used to stick out of all the horrible discomfort, something like the points of a harrow would stick into you if you slept on it.

I used to visit all the trenches, and look up the various company commanders and platoon commanders in the same way as I did at St. Yvon.  I got a splendid idea of all the details of our position; all the various ways from one part of it to another.  As I walked back to the Douve farm at night, nearly always alone, I used to keep on exploring the wide tract of land that lay behind our trenches.  “I’ll have a look at that old cottage up on the right to-night,” I used to say to myself, and later, when the time came for me to walk back from the trenches, I would go off at a new angle across the plain, and make for my objective.  Once inside, and feeling out of view of the enemy, I would go round the deserted rooms and lofts by the light of a few matches, and if the house looked as if it would prove of interest, I would return the next night with a candle-end, and make an examination of the whole thing.  They are all very much alike, these houses in Flanders; all seem to contain the same mangled remains of simple, homely occupations.  Strings of onions, old straw hats, and clogs, mixed with an assortment of cheap clothing, with perhaps here and there an umbrella or a top hat.  That is about the class of stuff one found in them.  After one of these expeditions I would go on back across the plain, along the corduroy boards or by the bank of the river, to our farm.