After a time it was realized that the war would not be short, that fields must not lie untilled for years, nor men undergo the deteriorating effects of trench warfare continuously.

From our leftas it seemedsome distance away, came the short sharp reports of the trench mortars, but presently, as we walked on, guns just behind us and below us, began to boom over our heads, and we heard again the long-drawn scream or swish of the shells, rushing on their deadly path to search out the back of the enemy's lines in the haze yonder, and flinging confusion on his lines of communication, his supplies and reserves.

There to the south, on our right, and curving eastward, are two trench lines perfectly clear still on the brown desolation, the British and the enemy front lines.

Many unique features of trench life were developed during the first month of winter warfare.

She wore her farm dress, knee breeches and a thing like an old trench coat, and looked superb.

"If you do not answer next time I speak," he said smoothly, "I will give one word that will pin you to the trench wall and leave you there.

Then it had been mainly infantry fighting at close range; now it was the labored pounding of heavy guns, the pushing ahead of trench-work preparatory to another pitched battle.

To reduce Gaza would require a prolonged artillery bombardment with far more batteries than General Allenby could ever expect to have at his command, and it is certain that not only would the line in front of the town have had to be taken, but also the whole of the western end of the Turks' trench system for a length of at least 12,000 yards.

"That's one of our torpilleurswhat you call trench-sweepers," said the observer among the whispering leaves.

"War, which only smoldered here and there during the endless trench fighting, like damp wood, burns here with such all-consuming fire that divisions have to be called up after days and hours in the trenches, and are ground to pieces and burned up into so many cinders and ashes.

A portion of the French front was taken over by the United States troops under General Pershing early in 1918 and in a number of trench raids and patrol engagements in the last weeks of winter they gave a good account of themselves, receiving their baptism of enemy fire and gas with the utmost gallantry and winning several minor engagements.

Still there it is, and any officer will tell you that his men look on trench-digging with distaste, have to be constantly persuaded and chivvied into doing anything like their best at it, and on the whole would apparently much rather take their chance in a shallow or poorly-constructed trench than be at the labor of making it deep and safe.

"But whilst giving a preference to trench ploughing over subsoil, I am of opinion that it should not be generally attempted under any circumstances, however favourable, without previous thorough-draining, any more than subsoil ploughing; but when so drained, there is no mode of management, in my opinion, that will render land so soon amenable to the means of putting it in a high degree of fertility as trench ploughing.

They were great trench diggers and trench fighters, and their endurance on the march was a marvel to the allied armies.

That is to say, after three months of trench routine and trench endurance imposed by a winter which seemed to have let loose every possible misery of cold and wet, of storm and darkness, on the fighting hosts in France, the battle of the Somme had moved steadily forward again from the point it had reached in November.

They were great trench diggers and trench fighters, and their endurance on the march was a marvel to the allied armies.

" However, he collected eight puzzled but peaceful mules and handed them to a still more bewildered adjutant, who knew not if they were "trench stores" or "articles to be returned to salvage.

There was no chance of decent burial for him here, but I had his body placed upon an empty trench cart, which was being towed by a lorry of another Battery, and put two of our men in charge of it.

Let me quote a soldier's plain and graphic letter, recently published: "This break-away from trench war gives us a much better time.

And evening dress, I've been advised, Will never become transitional; Yet once or twice I've been surprised To find my khaki pals disguised In new dress suits and old trench boots, Which scarcely seems traditional.

" Normal trench talk, this!

For the last two years he had been investigating trench fever, with results that were to make him famous.

Some of them came into range of the German trench fire almost at once.

The platoon Sergeant, who is suffering from trench feet and is a constant reader of a certain pessimistic halfpenny journal, replies gloomily: "We'll have had heavy losses oorselves, too, I doot!"

An artillery observing officer is said to have seen flitting shadows of figures in the gray light of the dawn mists, and, later, an odd glimpse of cautious movement amongst the trees of a wood some little distance behind the German lines, and an unbroken passing of gray-covered heads behind a portion of a communication trench parapet.