We are all used to dead bodies or pieces of men, so much so that we are not troubled by the sight of them. There was a right hand sticking out of the trench in the position of a man trying to shake hands with you, and as the men filed out they would often grip it and say, "So long, old top, we'll be back again soon." One man had the misfortune to be buried in such a way that the bald part of the head showed. It had been there a long time and was sun-dried. Tommy used him to strike his matches on. A corpse in a trench is quite a feature, and is looked for when the men come back again to the same trench.
We live mostly on bully beef and hard tack. The first is corned beef and the second is a kind of dog biscuit. We always wondered why they were so particular about a man's teeth in the army. Now I know. It's on account of these biscuits. The chief ingredient is, I think, cement, and they taste that way too. To break them it is necessary to use the handle of your entrenching tool or a stone. We have fried, baked, mashed, boiled, toasted, roasted, poached, hashed, devilled them alone and together with bully beef, and we have still to find a way of making them into interesting food.
However, the Boche likes our beef. He prefers the brand canned in Chicago to his own, and will almost sit up and beg if we throw some over to him. The method is as follows: Throw one over ... sounds of shuffling and getting out of the way are heard in the enemy trench. Fritz thinks it's going to go off. Pause, and throw another. Fritz not so suspicious this time. Keep on throwing until happy voices from enemy trenches shout, "More! Give us more!" Then lob over as many hand grenades as you can pile into that part of the trench and tell them to share those too.
It takes some time to distinguish whether shells are arrivals or departures, but after a while you get into the way of telling their direction and size by sound. Roads are constantly shelled, searching for troops or supply columns. I was coming home to-day, up a road which ran approximately at right angles to main fire trenches. At one place the road was exposed for a matter of thirty or forty feet, and again farther up it was necessary to go over the brow of a small hill. This was about three hundred yards farther on and was exposed to the enemy's view. Thinking they wouldn't bother about a single rider on a motor cycle, I went up past the first exposed position. My carburetor was giving me some trouble and I thought I would see if any rain had got into it, so I turned off the road down a cross-road and dismounted when _crash_! a shell landed right in the middle of the road as far up the exposed place as I was round the corner. Then five more followed the first shell. Had I gone on I could not possibly have missed collecting most of the fragments. The German gunners had spotted me in the first position and decided that a lone man on a motor cycle must be either an officer or despatch rider. So they tried to get him. The shells were shrapnel and the time was calculated splendidly. They had taken into consideration the speed of my motor cycle. Cross-roads are particularly attended to, for there is a double chance of hitting something, and in consequence it is always unhealthy to linger on a crossroad.