I forgot to say that we had come up by daylight.  Ordinarily troops are moved at night, but the communication trench from Bully-Grenay was very deep and was protected at points by little hills, and it was possible to move men in the daytime.

Arrived in the front trench, the sergeant-major appeared, crawling out of his dug-out—­the usual place for a sergeant-major—­and greeted us with,

“Keep your nappers down, you rooks.  Don’t look over the top.  It ayen’t ’ealthy.”

It is the regular warning to new men.  For some reason the first emotion of the rookie is an overpowering curiosity.  He wants to take a peep into No Man’s Land.  It feels safe enough when things are quiet.  But there’s always a Fritzie over yonder with a telescope-sighted rifle, and it’s about ten to one he’ll get you if you stick the old “napper” up in daylight.

The Germans, by the way, have had the “edge” on the Allies in the matter of sniping, as in almost all lines of artillery and musketry practice.  The Boche sniper is nearly always armed with a periscope-telescope rifle.  This is a specially built super-accurate rifle mounted on a periscope frame.  It is thrust up over the parapet and the image of the opposing parapet is cast on a little ground-glass screen on which are two crossed lines.  At one hundred fifty yards or less the image is brought up to touching distance seemingly.  Fritz simply trains his piece on some low place or anywhere that a head may be expected.  When one appears on the screen, he pulls the trigger,—­and you “click it” if you happen to be on the other or receiving end.  The shooter never shows himself.

I remember the first time I looked through a periscope I had no sooner thrust the thing up than a bullet crashed into the upper mirror, splintering it.  Many times I have stuck up a cap on a stick and had it pierced.

The British sniper, on the other hand—­at least in my time—­had a plain telescope rifle and had to hide himself behind old masonry, tree trunks, or anything convenient, and camouflaged himself in all sorts of ways.  At that he was constantly in danger.

I was assigned to Platoon 10 and found they were a good live bunch.  Corporal Wells was the best of the lot, and we became fast friends.  He helped me learn a lot of my new duties and the trench “lingo”, which is like a new language, especially to a Yank.

Wells started right in to make me feel at home and took me along with two others of the new men down to our “apartments”, a dug-out built for about four, and housing ten.

My previous idea of a dug-out had been a fairly roomy sort of cave, somewhat damp, but comparatively comfortable.  Well, this hole was about four and a half feet high—­you had to get in doubled up on your hands and knees—­about five by six feet on the sides, and there was no floor, just muck.  There was some sodden, dirty straw and a lot of old moldy sandbags.  Seven men and their equipment were packed in here, and we made ten.