Do you believe all those who have survived this horrible December winter, at Eparges, are martyrs? Not at all. Listen to what I heard this morning.
Two sapper-miners were arguing and this is what took place:
"You ought to be ashamed to be always in F gallery—it won't be blown up by the enemy for two months. It's always the same with you fellows who go in for this kind of fighting——
"Désiré, you're nothing but a slacker!"
A WALK IN THE FOG, CALONNE TRENCH.
December, 1915.
There is a thick, heavy fog here this morning——
One can stand on the parapet, where, two hours afterwards, he would be pierced like a sieve.
It gives one a very curious sensation to go several steps in front of the trench, over the snow, to reconnoitre the terrain ahead of us.
And it is quite different to inspect this sombre place which we always see through a periscope, not knowing what it really is.
Dead boughs and leaves crackle under our feet while we move with care. There is a zig-zag path in the wire entanglement right in front of us——