Asking me to wait until he made a light, the captain bent over as if about to crawl under the top rail of a fence and his head disappeared.  After he had put a match to a candle and stuck it on a stick thrust into the wall, I could see the interior of his habitation.  A rubber sheet spread on the moist earth served as floor, carpet, mattress, and bed.  At a squeeze there was room for two others besides himself.  They did not need any doormat, for when they lay down their feet would be at the door.

“Quite cosy, don’t you think?” remarked the captain.  He seemed to feel that he had a royal chamber.  But, then, he was the kind of man who might sleep in a muddy field under a wagon and regard the shelter of the wagon body as a luxury.  “Leave your knapsack here,” he continued, “and we’ll see what is doing along the line.”

In other words, after you had left your bag in the host’s hall, he suggested a stroll in the village or across the fields.  But only to see war would he have asked you to walk in such mud.

“Not quite so loud!” he warned a soldier who was bringing up boards from the rear under cover of darkness.  “If the Germans hear they may start firing.”

Two other men were piling mud on top of a section of breastwork at an angle to the main line.

“What is that for?” the captain asked.

“They get an enfilade on us here, sir, and Mr.------ (the lieutenant) told
me to make this higher.”

“That’s no good.  A bullet will go right through,” said the captain.  “We’ll have to wait until we get more sandbags.”

A little farther on we came to an open space, with no protection between us and the Germans.  Half a dozen men were piling earth against a staked chicken wire to extend the breastworks.  Rather, they were piling mud, and they were besmirched from head to foot.  They looked like reeking Neptunes rising from a slough.  In the same position in daylight, standing full height before German rifles at three hundred yards, they would have been shot dead before they could leap to cover.

“How does it go?” asked the captain.

“Very well, sir; though what we need is sandbags.”

“We’ll have some up to-morrow.”

At the moment there was no firing in the vicinity.  Faintly I heard the Germans pounding stakes, at work improving their own breastworks.

A British soldier appeared out of the darkness in front.

“We’ve found two of our men out there with their heads blown off by shells,” he said.  “Have we permission to go out and bury them, sir?”

“Yes.”

They would be as safe as the fellows piling mud against the chicken wire, unless the Germans opened fire.  If they did, we could fire on their working-party, or in the direction of the sound.  For that matter, we knew through our glasses by day the location of any weak places in their breastworks, and they knew where ours were.  A sort of “after-you-gentlemen-if-you-fire-we-shall” understanding sometimes exists between the foes up to a certain point.  Each side understands instinctively the limitation of that point.  Too much noise in working, a number of men going out to bury dead or making enough noise to be heard, and the ball begins.  A deep, broad ditch filled with water made a break in our line.  No doubt a German machine-gun was trained on it.