It seemed only a few minutes before the sergeant thrust his head into my dug-out with a "Midnight, sir!" I groped around for my pocket lamp and looked at my watch—some way you always hope the sergeant is wrong, but he never is—and tumbled out to relieve poor Lyte, who had spent a miserable four hours.
A rift in the clouds showed our friends of the midnight watch—the Great Bear and Cassiopeia—twinkling merrily as though it had never rained for a fortnight.
I sloshed my way down to the far end of the trench. Pools of water lay ankle deep here and there along its length. Already one or two men, who had just come off sentry, had started to drain these into little catch-pools. From here it was baled by means of the ever-useful Maconachie tin into an equally useful biscuit tin, which was afterwards dumped on the enemy's side of the parapet.
In other places the men had turned in and were already asleep, so they were promptly stirred up and told to "Get busy," and, for the night, the blosh of the baling tin took the place of the smack of a shovel on a freshly-placed sandbag.
At frequent intervals it was necessary to crawl out and visit the listening posts, who lay in the rank grass just beyond our own wire.
On returning, not only were one's feet wet, but knees and elbows as well. Then it was up and down the trench again for another hour or so.
A fine drizzle set in and the stars again disappeared, the drizzle turning to a steady shower.
I retired to company headquarters, only emerging when necessary to visit the sentries and listening posts again. There, by the aid of a sputtering candle, I sought diversion in the shape of a sevenpenny novel that some kindly soul had forgotten in his haste to be relieved.
