[Illustration: soldier at rest]

After what seems an interminable wait, we hear a clinking of mess tins
and rattling of equipment, the sloshing of feet in the mud, and much
whispered profanity, which all goes to announce to you that "they're
here!" Then you know that the other battalion has arrived, and are now
about to take over these precious slots in the ground.

When the exchange is complete, we are free to go!--to go out for our few
days in billets!

The actual going out and getting clear of the trenches takes a long
time. Handing over, and finally extricating ourselves from the morass,
in the dark, with all our belongings, is a lengthy process; and then we
have about a mile of country which we have never been able to examine in
the day time, and get familiar with, to negotiate. This is before we get
to the high road, and really start for billets.

I had the different machine-gun sections to collect from their various
guns, and this not until the relieving sections had all turned up. It
was a good two hours' job getting all the sections with their guns,
ammunition and various extras finally collected together in the dark a
mile back, ready to put all the stuff in the limbers, and so back to
billets. When all was fixed up I gave the order and off we started,
plodding along back down the narrow, dreary road towards our
resting-place. But it was quite a cheerful tramp, knowing as we did that
we were going to four days' comparative rest, and, anyway, safety.

On we went down the long, flat, narrow roads, occasionally looking round
to see the faint flicker of a star shell showing over the tops of the