It was amazing how simply things could be done.  His battalion had marched in quietly at midnight, and the line they came to relieve had set out as silently for the rear.  It all took place in utter darkness.  Just as B Company slid down an incline into the shallow rear trenches, the country was lit for a moment by two star shells, there was a rattling of machine guns, German Maxims,—­a sporadic crackle that was not followed up.  Filing along the communication trenches, they listened anxiously; artillery fire would have made it bad for the other men who were marching to the rear.  But nothing happened.  They had a quiet night, and this morning, here they were!

The sky flamed up saffron and silver.  Claude looked at his watch, but he could not bear to go just yet.  How long it took a Wheeler to get round to anything!  Four years on the way; now that he was here, he would enjoy the scenery a bit, he guessed.  He wished his mother could know how he felt this morning.  But perhaps she did know.  At any rate, she would not have him anywhere else.  Five years ago, when he was sitting on the steps of the Denver State House and knew that nothing unexpected could ever happen to him... suppose he could have seen, in a flash, where he would be today?  He cast a long look at the reddening, lengthening landscape, and dropped down on the duckboard.

Claude made his way back to the dugout into which he and Gerhardt had thrown their effects last night.  The former occupants had left it clean.  There were two bunks nailed against the side walls,—­wooden frames with wire netting over them, covered with dry sandbags.  Between the two bunks was a soap-box table, with a candle stuck in a green bottle, an alcohol stove, a bainmarie, and two tin cups.  On the wall were coloured pictures from Jugend, taken out of some Hun trench.

He found Gerhardt still asleep on his bed, and shook him until he sat up.

“How long have you been out, Claude?  Didn’t you sleep?”

“A little.  I wasn’t very tired.  I suppose we could heat shaving water on this stove; they’ve left us half a bottle of alcohol.  It’s quite a comfortable little hole, isn’t it?”

“It will doubtless serve its purpose,” David remarked dryly.  “So sensitive to any criticism of this war!  Why, it’s not your affair; you’ve only just arrived.”

“I know,” Claude replied meekly, as he began to fold his blankets.  “But it’s likely the only one I’ll ever be in, so I may as well take an interest.”

The next afternoon four young men, all more or less naked, were busy about a shell-hole full of opaque brown water.  Sergeant Hicks and his chum, Dell Able, had hunted through half the blazing hot morning to find a hole not too scummy, conveniently, and even picturesquely situated, and had reported it to the Lieutenants.  Captain Maxey, Hicks said, could send his own orderly to find his own shell-hole, and could take his bath in private.  “He’d never wash himself with anybody else,” the Sergeant added.  “Afraid of exposing his dignity!”