“phit” of bullets hitting the mud all around.  Think of that as your portion each night and every night.  When you have finished this job, the rest you get consists of coiling yourself up in a damp dug-out.  Night after night, week after week, month after month, this job is done by thousands.  As one sits in a brilliantly illuminated, comfortable, warm theatre, having just come from a cosy and luxurious restaurant, just think of some poor devil half-way along those corduroy boards struggling with a crate of biscuits; the ration “dump” behind, the trenches on in front.  When he has finished he will step down into the muddy slush of a trench, and take his place with the rest, who, if need be, will go on doing that job for another ten years, without thinking of an alternative.  The Germans made a vast mistake when they thought they had gauged the English temperament.

* * * * *

We went “in” and “out” of those trenches many times.  During these intervals of “out” I began to draw pictures more and more.  It had become known that I drew these trench pictures, not only in our battalion but in several others, and at various headquarters I got requests for four or five drawings at a time.  About three weeks after I returned from leave, I had to move my billeting quarters.  I went to a farm called “La petite Monque”; I don’t know how it’s really spelt, but that’s what the name sounded like.  Here I lived with the officers of A Company, and a jolly pleasant crew they were.  We shared a mess together, and had one big room and one small room between us.  There were six of us altogether.  The Captain had the little room and the bed in it, whilst we all slept round the table on the floor in the big room.  Here, in the daytime, when I was not out with the machine-gun sections, I drew several pictures.  The Brigadier-General of our brigade took a particular fancy to one which he got from me.  The divisional headquarters had half a dozen; whilst I did two sets of four each for two officers in the regiment.

Sometimes we would go for walks around the country, and occasionally made an excursion as far as Bailleul, about five miles away.  Bailleul held one special attraction for us.  There were some wonderfully good baths there.  The fact that they were situated in the lunatic asylum rather added to their interest.

The first time I went there, one of the subalterns in A Company was my companion.  We didn’t particularly want to walk all the way, so we decided to get down to the high road as soon as we could, and try and get a lift in a car.  With great luck we managed to stop a fairly empty car, and got a lift.  It was occupied by a couple of French soldiers who willingly rolled us along into Bailleul.  Once there, we walked through the town and out to the asylum close by.  I expect by now the lunatics have been called up under the group system; but in those days they were there, and pulled faces at us as we walked