We passed behind several batteries, and I thought to myself:  “Dash it all!  I know my eyes can’t be watering because of the noise.  What the deuce is the matter?  I hope the Colonel won’t notice.”

However, on we waded and plodded.  Suddenly the Colonel stopped, and exclaimed:  “Oh damnation!  This is perfect nonsense.”  His eyes were like tomatoes, and the tears were rolling down his cheeks!

By this time we could hardly see at all, and it dawned on us that we must hastily put on our tear goggles, which we had never used before, but always, of course, carry.  They go in the satchel along with the two gas helmets.

Presently we met some infantry coming back, all safely begoggled.  The Huns, they told us, were dropping tear shells just into that valley in front, where our working-party was supposed to be.  You can tell them (the tear shells), they said, by the fluttering sound, and they knock up no earth and make very little smoke.

Sure enough, as soon as we got over the brow there they were.  They make a foolish wobbly, wavy sound as they come over, and look most innocent.  So they are really if you get your goggles on in time.  But if one bursts close to you, and you haven’t got goggles on, why, then you’ll be as blind as an owl, and you’ll weep like a shower bath.

[Sidenote:  BETWEEN HIGH WOOD AND FLERS]

Then the absurd thing was that we couldn’t find the working-party.  Plenty of dead Huns, but nobody alive.  Not a sign.  Only crumps dropping here and there and everywhere.  So we found a bit of a trench that led back round the side of the wood.  The front line trenches were only very lightly held, partly because they are almost completely blown in.  And we could get no information as to the working-party at all.

Presently we saw why.  The Huns had put up a barrage across the valley they were coming up.  We knew they would come up this other valley, as they had to report on their way to H.Q., ——­ Division.  So we got into a hole and waited.

After about half an hour the barrage lifted and up came our working-party none the worse.  It is a most amazing war.  People literally dodge shells and things as you might dodge snow-balls.

When we arrived back at the place where we left our two men, they also were not to be seen.

After some time and anxious inquiries for two men with four horses, we at last discovered them nearly half a mile away.  Fritz had put some heavy stuff over fairly near, and they had moved.

“A very interesting bit of the line isn’t it, Hale?” I said as we moved off.  “Yes, sir,” he said, adding with a fierce frown, “but not very safe, sir.”

And then we all laughed.  Hale does frown so when he makes one of his oracular utterances.

[Illustration:  A HOUSE IN GEUDECOURT Here, as in many of these sketches, there are no people to be seen, for the simple reason that they are all underground in dug-outs.]