Digging oneself in is another highly unpopular fatigue.  First of all you produce your portable entrenching-tool—­it looks like a combination of a modern tack-hammer and a medieval back-scratcher—­and fit it to its haft.  Then you lie flat upon your face on the wet grass, and having scratched up some small lumps of turf, proceed to build these into a parapet.  Into the hole formed by the excavation of the turf you then put your head, and in this ostrich-like posture await further instructions.  Private Mucklewame is of opinion that it would be equally effective, and infinitely less fatiguing, simply to lie down prone and close the eyes.

After Captain Wagstaffe has criticised the preliminary parapets—­most of them are condemned as not being bullet-proof—­the work is continued.  It is not easy, and never comfortable, to dig lying down; but we must all learn to do it; so we proceed painfully to construct a shallow trough for our bodies and an annexe for our boots.  Gradually we sink out of sight, and Captain Wagstaffe, standing fifty yards to our front, is able to assure us that he can now see nothing—­except Private Mucklewame’s lower dorsal curve.

By this time the rain has returned for good, and the short winter day is drawing to a gloomy close.  It is after three, and we have been working, with one brief interval, for nearly five hours.  The signal is given to take shelter.  We huddle together under the leafless trees, and get wetter.

Next comes the order to unroll greatcoats.  Five minutes later comes another—­to fall in.  Tools are counted; there is the usual maddening wait while search is made for a missing pick.  But at last the final word of command rings out, and the sodden, leaden-footed procession sets out on its four-mile tramp home.

We are not in good spirits.  One’s frame of mind at all times depends largely upon what the immediate future has to offer; and, frankly, we have little to inspire us in that direction at present.  When we joined, four long months ago, there loomed largely and splendidly before our eyes only two alternatives—­victory in battle or death with honour.  We might live, or we might die; but life, while it lasted, would not lack great moments.  In our haste we had overlooked the long dreary waste which lay—­which always lies—­between dream and fulfilment.  The glorious splash of patriotic fervour which launched us on our way has subsided; we have reached mid-channel; and the haven where we would be is still afar off.  The brave future of which we dreamed in our dour and uncommunicative souls seems as remote as ever, and the present has settled down into a permanency.