It is two A.M., and comparative peace reigns up and down the line.  The rain of star-shells, always prodigal in the early evening, has died down to a mere drizzle.  Working and fatigue parties, which have been busy since darkness set in at five o’clock,—­rebuilding parapets, repairing wire, carrying up rations, and patrolling debatable areas,—­have ceased their labours, and are sleeping heavily until the coming of the wintry dawn shall rouse them, grimy and shivering, to another day’s unpleasantness.

Private Hans Dumpkopf, on sentry duty in the Boche firing-trench, gazes mechanically over the parapet; but the night is so dark and the wind so high that it is difficult to see and quite impossible to hear anything.  He shelters himself beside a traverse, and waits patiently for his relief.  It begins to rain, and Hans, after cautiously reconnoitring the other side of the traverse, to guard against prowling sergeants, sidles a few yards to his right beneath the friendly cover of an improvised roof of corrugated iron sheeting, laid across the trench from parapet to parados.  It is quite dry here, and comparatively warm.  Hans closes his eyes for a moment, and heaves a gentle sigh.

Next moment there comes a rush of feet in the darkness, followed by a metallic clang, as of hobnailed boots on metal.  Hans, lying prostrate and half-stunned beneath the galvanised iron sheeting, which, dislodged from its former position by the impact of a heavy body descending from above, now forms part of the flooring of the trench, is suddenly aware that this same trench is full of men—­rough, uncultured men, clad in short petticoats and the skins of wild animals, and armed with knobkerries.  The Flying Matinee has begun, and Hans Dumpkopf has got in by the early door.

Each of the performers—­there are fifty of them all told—­has his part to play, and plays it with commendable aplomb.  One, having disarmed an unresisting prisoner, assists him over the parapet and escorts him affectionately to his new home.  Another clubs a recalcitrant foeman over the head with a knobkerry, and having thus reduced him to a more amenable frame of mind, hoists him over the parapet and drags him after his “kamarad.”

Other parties are told off to deal with the dug-outs.  As a rule, the occupants of these are too dazed to make any resistance,—­to be quite frank, the individual Boche in these days seems rather to welcome captivity than otherwise,—­and presently more of the “bag” are on their way to the British lines.

But by this time the performance is drawing to a close.  The alarm has been communicated to the adjacent sections of the trench, and preparations for the ejection of the intruders are being hurried forward.  That is to say, German bombers are collecting upon either flank, with the intention of bombing “inwards” until the impudent foe has been destroyed or evicted.  As we are not here to precipitate a general action, but merely to round up a few prisoners and do as much