"A very interesting bit of the line isn't it, Hale?" I said as we moved off. "Yes, sir," he said, adding with a fierce frown, "but not very _safe_, sir."
And then we all laughed. Hale does frown so when he makes one of his oracular utterances.
[Illustration: 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.]
It's up to us to reconnoitre carefully every time there is a move forward, so as to see the new ground.
One of the most curious and interesting things is this: the Boche rarely wastes. He only puts his crumps and pip-squeaks just where he thinks (or knows) our batteries are, and our infantry want to be, and our horses would be likely to be (if they weren't somewhere else). So that gradually you begin to track out safe routes. Don't go near the edge of ---- Wood, but 200 yards inside the wood, on the north side, you're pretty comfy. Don't go near the mangled remains of ---- village, but keep to the right of it until you get to the wrecked aeroplane, and then turn down the remains of ---- trench, and you probably won't be touched. That sort of thing.
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.