of the wood, linking up with the Sherwood Foresters, who now no longer required carrying parties.  Meanwhile, it was discovered that from his newly captured position, the Boche completely overlooked the track from Zillebeke to Maple Copse, and accordingly we were ordered to start at once to dig a communication trench alongside the track.  All that night, the next day, Bank Holiday, and the following night, we worked till we could hardly hold our shovels, and by the time we stopped, at dawn on the 3rd, there was a trench the whole way—­not very deep in places and not perhaps very scientifically dug, but still enough to give cover.  As soon as work was over we returned to the copse and slept, for at dusk that night we were to go once more to the line and relieve the Lincolnshires in “50” to “A7.”  Maple Copse had cost us altogether 35 killed and wounded.

We found the trenches very much as we had left them except that “A1” had been battered into an almost unrecognizable condition by the enemy’s latest trench weapon, the heavy Minenwerfer.  Unlike the “Rum Jar” or “Cannister,” which was a home-made article consisting of any old tin filled with explosive, this new bomb was shaped like a shell, fitted with a copper driving band and fired from a rifled mortar.  It weighed over 200 lbs., was either two feet two inches or three feet six inches long and nine inches in diameter, and produced on exploding a crater as big as a small mine.  It could fortunately be seen in the air, and the position of the mortar was roughly known, so we posted a sentry whose duty was to listen for the report of discharge, sight the bomb, and cry at the top of his voice “Sausage left” or “Sausage right.”  Our Artillery had tried hard to destroy the mortar, but it apparently had a small railway to itself, and moved away as soon as we opened fire.  For retaliation we had nothing except rifle grenades, which were like flea-bites to an elephant, or the Howitzers, who had to be called on the telephone, all of which took time.

The rest of the line was fairly quiet except for a few small “sausages” on trench “50,” and our chief concern was now the shortage of men.  In those days a trench was not considered adequately garrisoned unless there were at least three men in every fire bay, so that although we had many more men to the yard than we have many times had since, we imagined, when we found it necessary to have one or two empty fire bays, that we were impossibly weak.  So much was this the case, that, on the night of the 4th August, C.Q.M.  Serjeants Gorse and Gilding were ordered to bring all available men from the stores at Poperinghe to help hold the line—­a most unpleasant journey because the Boche, always fond of celebrating anniversaries, commemorated the declaration of war with a “strafe” of special magnitude.  As most of this came between Ypres and Zillebeke, the two Quartermaster Serjeants had a harassing time, and did not reach their bivouacs in Poperinghe until