“I went back to have a look-see into the crater, sirr.”

“Well?”

“It’s fair blown in, sirr, and a good piece of the sap too.  I tried could I find a prisoner to bring in”—­our Colonel has promised a reward of fifty francs to the man who can round up a whole live Bosche—­“but there were nane.  They had got their wounded away, I doubt.”

“Never mind,” says Simson.  “Sergeant, see these men get some sleep now.  Stand-to at two-thirty, as usual.  I must go and pitch in a report, and I shall say you all did splendidly.  Good-night!”

This morning, the official Intelligence Summary of our Division—­published daily and known to the unregenerate as “Comic Cuts”—­announced, with solemn relish, among other items of news:—­

Last night a small party bombed a suspected saphead at—­here followed the exact bearings of the crater on the large-scale map. Loud groans were heard, so it is probable that the bombs took effect.

For the moment, life has nothing more to offer to our seven friends.

II

As already noted, our enthusiasm for our own sphere of activity is not always shared by our colleagues.  For instance, we in the trenches frequently find the artillery of both sides unduly obtrusive; and we are of opinion that in trench warfare artillery practice should be limited by mutual consent to twelve rounds per gun per day, fired by the gunners at the gunners.  “Except, of course, when the Big Push comes.”  The Big Push is seldom absent from our thoughts in these days.

“That,” observed Captain Wagstaffe to Bobby Little, “would leave us foot-sloggers to settle our own differences.  My opinion is that we should do so with much greater satisfaction to ourselves if we weren’t constantly interfered with by coal-boxes and Black Marias.”

“Still, you can’t blame them for loosing off their big guns,” contended the fair-minded Bobby.  “It must be great sport.”

“They tell me it’s a greatly overrated amusement,” replied Wagstaffe—­“like posting an insulting letter to some one you dislike.  You see, you aren’t there when he opens it at breakfast next morning!  The only man of them who gets any fun is the Forward Observing Officer.  And he,” concluded Wagstaffe in an unusual vein of pessimism, “does not live long enough to enjoy it!”

The grievances of the Infantry, however, are not limited to those supplied by the Royal Artillery.  There are the machine-guns and the trench-mortars.

The machine-gunner is a more or less accepted nuisance by this time.  He has his own emplacements in the line, but he never appears to use them.  Instead, he adopts the peculiar expedient of removing his weapon from a snug and well-fortified position, and either taking it away somewhere behind the trenches and firing salvoes over your head (which is reprehensible), or planting it upon the parapet in your particular preserve, and firing it from there (which is criminal).  Machine-gun fire always provokes retaliation.