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(6).
your immediate vicinity but now you must keep your eyes open for distant flares lest they expose you. By walking doubled up we reach the first post unobserved. "Good night sergeant". "Good night sir, everything is O.K. here except for the cold. That tea you sent up last night was frozen solid by the time we got it (tea and water are carried in 2 gallon petrol tins) and as all our water bottles are frozen we have been unable to get a drink. I've had the men sitting on the tins in turn in the hopes that the heat of their bodies would melt the ice, but this only yielded a trickle after the whole personel of the post had had a turn at the hatching business." "That's bad luck, sergeant, but we may be able to fix you up with something before daylight as we have sent to try and get some "Tommy Cookers" (a small spirit lamp operated by solidified spirit) and if these are procurable you shall have one". "Thank you, sir, good night." "Good night sergeant". We crawl over the parados and make for No. 2 post. We have not gone more than about 30 yards when a couple of rifle shots whiz close by us, so knowing that we are spotted we finish the journey on hands and knees in which attitude we are scarcely likely to be visible from the German line which is still about 150 yards away. As a preliminary precaution we had wrapped sandbags round our knees, and put on leather gloves so that the crawling about in the snow would not inconvenience us too much. No. 2 post reported the same trouble with the tea and also that through lack of being able to move about the men were finding difficulty in keeping the blood circulation in their feet. Here the Sergeant was instructed to make each man responsible for the condition of the feet of the man on his immediate left. This had been found to work well before, each man taking the bare foot of his neighbour between his knees in