Following orders, under the friendly shelter of night’s curtain, I was leading my squad to our gun positions in the front line, about three miles distant, and in slipping and sliding over the muddy ground, pitted with holes in such a manner as to suggest to one’s mind that the earth’s surface had been scourged with an attack of elephantine smallpox, we could not help chuckling, in spite of the discomforts of our journey, at the ejaculation of a Cockney Tommy:  “Strike me pink, Sergeant, but Fritz would think we was his pals if he only saw this goose-step work.”  This was an allusion to the fashion we had to employ in picking our steps on the lookout for holes.  In this region the fair face of nature is distorted in every conceivable way with holes and ditches, some of the holes big enough to engulf a house, and it is no mere desire to avoid the water in these holes that compels us to pick our steps in this hell-swept part of the world; it is the first law of nature, self preservation, for many a poor lad has been done to death in them by drowning.

On this night my squad, including myself, was composed of 13 men, and although none of the men, if they did notice it, mentioned the coincidence, I must confess, although I myself studiously refrained from making any comment about it, the thought of the fateful number kept recurring to my mind as we made our way to the spot where the visits of the Grim Reaper were so frequent that death had ceased to be anything but an every-day occurrence.  It was only when some friend or chum paid the supreme price that we gave the matter any particular attention, and then it would be for but a short time.  The necessity of every man’s looking out for his own life gave him but little time to think of much else, unless, indeed, killing the Huns.  Next to saving our own lives that is the heartfelt desire of each man—­get Fritz.  And yet, although the first thought of everyone is, naturally, for his own life, there is no history in this war that can be written that can recount the number of occasions when the seeming first thought of men was to do for their pals, utterly regardless of their own safety.  For sheer toying with death and taking chances in situations that did not seem to offer the slightest hope or chance of getting through, the Great War discloses feats of valor with which nothing can compare that comes out of the mist of “Days of old when knights were bold.”

After goose-stepping for over an hour, and almost completely winded, we flopped on the ground for a few minutes to catch our breath.  We were within about half-a-mile of the ridge over which we had to go in order to get down into our dugouts, and Fritz’ calling cards were commencing to come in our direction; star shells were shooting up at short intervals, the gleam of a flare every now and then plainly revealing ourselves to each other.  As we sat there the conversation seemed to lag and a silence that struck me as somewhat ominous pervaded our little group.  I wondered if the rest were thinking of our number.  One of my best chums, Corporal Lawrence, was sitting next me, and I thought I heard him sigh.