I've been sleeping in the most superb Boche dug-out. Very deep; I should think 30 feet down. The inside is pillared rather like the studio, and cretonned all over with maroon-coloured stuff instead of wall-paper. There are lovely little cupboards everywhere, and doors and window-frames just like a real house. The windows, of course, only look out on to an air-shaft, so it's very dark, and you have to have candles all the time. The windows have no glass, of course, as that would be shattered to smithereens by the vibrations. Then there's an arch and more steps down lower still, into the bedroom for two.
Yesterday, being rather misty, I thought as follows:
"It is too foggy to see what Fritz is doing. No attack is intended or expected. The Colonel is at corps H.Q. Swallow and Jezebel and Tank are safe in —— valley. Roger is still here as Adjutant. Why not an afternoon off?"
So picture a holiday-maker armed with a revolver, two gas helmets, tear goggles, some sandwiches, and a large empty haversack. Now where to go? What about —— trench and all round —— village, even, perhaps, a lightning five minutes in the village itself? We have just taken the village, but it's rather an unhealthy spot at present.
—— trench is a new trench that poor Fritz dug just before he was driven out of it. I had seen lots of dead Fritzes there the day before. Also there were reports of curious things flung out into the mud in and round the village.
| A HOUSE IN GEUDECOURT Here, as in many of these sketches, there are no people to be seen, for the simple reason that they are all underground in dug-outs. |
TROPHIES