Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/702

 Fighting Mud in the Trenches

���It is not easy to imagine men stand- ing in trenches like this for three days and nights at a stretch, but that is what they did all through the long winter. Mud inundates the trenches on warm days and freezes in the cold weather. Long rubber boots, called "trench boots," were supplied to the men last winter and relieved the suffering to a great extent. Work in the trenches is not even confined to standing in the mud and fighting. In the illustration at the right is shown a sapper looking out from an air-hole. Many miles of tunneling have to be dug in order to gain de- sired positions and avoid the fire of the enemy. Underground mining, the digging of new trenches and building huts and caves for residence, give the soldier mud baths from head to foot

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