In the first place, it's just a glorious spring day.

At the back of the cranky bit of a ruined farm where we have our diggings (by the way, you may always go back at night and find half your bedroom shot away--that happened to me the other night--there was a tunic of mine still hanging on the door, and when you opened the door, nothing but a hole ten feet deep full of rubble--jolly luck, it didn't happen at night-time!) there are actually some lilac trees, and the buds on them are quite big.

And somehow or other the birds manage to sing in spite of the hell the Huns have made of things.
'I'm looking out now due east.

There's a tangled mass of trenches not far off, where there's been some hot raiding lately.

I see an engineer officer with a fatigue party working away at them--he's showing the men how to lay down a new trench with tapes and pegs.