[Sidenote:  The telephone system is demolished.]

The following day started as the first, but in the middle of the afternoon the telephone system of our sector was demolished by rifle and it was impossible to get into communication with either the headquarters or the trenches.

“That stops work for today!” the officer told me.  “No more gun fire till we get it fixed.”

I can remember asking anxiously what we could do.

“Nothing just this minute,” he laughed at my eagerness, “but tonight you and I will crawl out on our bellies and find that broken wire.  Then we will fix it, and unless they find us with a shell we’ll crawl back.”

[Sidenote:  We go out to mend the wire.]

The prospect was exciting, and I waited anxiously for night.  Then, armed with the necessary tools, we started to crawl along the trench containing the wires.  We had no light, we could not stand upright.  We went about a half mile, feeling every inch of wire for the break, and then suddenly I ran my hand along the wire that suddenly came to a point.  We had found the break.

“I’ve got it,” I called in my best whisper, but before I could receive a reply there was a noise from the German trenches.

“Star shell, star shell,” my French companion called excitedly.

[Sidenote:  A star shell bursts above us.]

Suddenly the shell burst above us, and it was more brilliant than day.  Frightened!  Say, that light is so great and the knowledge that if the Germans spot you you’re a goner, makes you just lie there and forget to breathe!  It does not take many seconds for a star shell to die away to a glow, but in those seconds you go right through life and back to the present.  When the light was gone I lay there fairly panting for breath.

“We’ll have to work quickly,” came the inspiring voice at my elbow, and we did.  We had not finished work before a new star shell was sent up.

[Sidenote:  The repair work is finished.]

The repair work did not take many minutes, and we started back again.  We were halted several times by star shells, and after the second or third time I began to reassure myself by saying that the Germans did not know I was out there, that they had nothing against me individually.  Afterwards I heard one of the officers say that they were probably suspicious because of the sudden cessation of the gun fire that afternoon, and were looking for a raiding party to cross no-man’s-land.

[Sidenote:  The noise of the shells.]

During the time that I was at the front, it was the custom for men to spend six days at the front, then go back to the village in which they were billeted—­always well beyond the firing line—­and there rest for about two weeks.  By the end of my third day I had become quite acclimated to the noise.  One afternoon a scouting aeroplane must have reported some fancied movement of troops in a village two or