The day before we came back into trenches I meant to have written you, but the chance didn't arise. Now we have been in just twenty-four hours, and though the time has gone like lightning, because one has been on the jump all the while, yet, looking back, it seems ever so long since we were in billets. A good deal has happened.

For the first time since we've been out here we took over in broad daylight yesterday afternoon, and I've never known Fritz so quiet as he was. Not only were there no shells, but very few bullets were flying while we were taking over, and the ——s were clearing out for their week in billets. We had everything in apple-pie order and the night's duties mapped out, stores checked, and ammunition dished out—the extra night supply I mean—before tea, and were just thinking how remarkably well-behaved the Boche was and what a great improvement it was to take over by daylight. And then the band played!

I had been counting the supply of bombs in the Company grenade store, and was in the act of setting my watch by Taffy's, standing there in the trench at a quarter to five, when, with a roar, shells landed in six different parts of our line; not in the trench, you know, but somewhere mighty close handy. Of course, you might say there was nothing very startling about half a dozen shells landing near us, especially as nobody was hit. And that's true. But there was something queer about it, all the same. We both felt it. Taffy looked at me, and I looked at him, and "Oho!" said Taffy. And I entirely agreed.

Perhaps it was partly the unusual quietness that had come before. Anyhow, we both started at the double for Company Headquarters, and I know we both had the same idea—to see whether "the Peacemaker" wanted the word passed for everyone to take cover in such artillery shelters as we have now in this sector; and, mind you, they're miles better than they were when we first took over.

But, bless your heart! we needn't have bothered getting word about it from the O.C. Before we got near the Company dug-out the men were seeing to that for themselves, as they have been taught to do, and the trenches were empty except, of course, for the sentries and their reliefs, who, with the observation officer, would remain at their posts even if the bottom fell out of the world.

Such a raging frenzy of fire as there was when we met "the Peacemaker," outside the signallers' cabin, you never could imagine in your life, not if I wrote about it all night. One knows now that, on the average, there were not more than ninety projectiles per minute coming over us. But at the time, I assure you, it seemed there must be about ten a second, and that shells must be literally jostling each other in the air. Apart from anything else, the air was full of falling earth, wood, and barbed wire. It was clear they had begun by ranging on our parapet and entanglements. The oddest things were falling apparently from the sky—bits of trench boots, bully beef tins, shovel handles, stakes six feet long, lengths of wire, crumpled sheets of iron, and all kinds of stuff.

I yelled to the O.C. that I would take observation duty, and Taffy wanted to take it with me. But "the Peacemaker" very properly insisted on his going to ground. We had to shout right in each other's ears. The O.C. told me our telephone wires were cut to ribbons already. "But Headquarters will know as much about this as we could tell 'em by now," he yelled. But he had sent off a chit by runner, just to let the C.O. know that our fellows had all taken cover, and that the heavy stuff seemed to be mostly landing on our front and the communication trenches immediately in rear. The O.C. made a cup of his hands and shouted in my ear as we crouched in the bottom of the trench:

"What you've got to do is to watch for the lifting of the curtain to our rear. Must have every man on the fire-step then. They must surely mean to come across after this."

"I hope so. 'A' Company 'll eat 'em if they do."

"That's if we can keep cover now without too many casualties. Keep as good a look-out as you can. You'll find me here, by the signallers."

So I left him, and made my way along to a little observing shelter we had made near the centre of our bit of firing line. But, when I got there, I found that shelter was just a heap of yeasty mud and rubbish. Fritz was pounding that bit out of all recognition. By this time, you know, one could hardly see six paces ahead anywhere. The smoke hung low, so that every shell in bursting made long sheets of red flame along the smoke. And just then I got my first whiff of gas in the smoke: not a gas cloud, you know, but the burst of gas shells: lachrymatory shells some of 'em were. So I went hurrying along the line then, ordering all gas helmets on. I found most of the men had seen to this without being told.

By the way, I ought to say that, so far as I can tell, bombardment doesn't affect one's mind much. You don't feel the slightest bit afraid. Only a lot more alert than usual, and rather keyed up, as you might be if you were listening to a fine orchestra playing something very stirring. It's rather a pleasant feeling, like the exhilaration you get from drinking champagne, or hearing a great speech on some big occasion when there are thousands of people listening and all pretty well worked up. As I scrambled along the fire trench I laughed once, because I found I was talking away nineteen to the dozen. I listened, as though it were to someone else, and I heard myself saying:

"Let her rip! Let her rip, you blighters! You can't smash us, you sauer-krauters. You're only wasting the ammunition you'll be praying for presently. Wait till our heavies get to work on you, you beauties. You'll wish you hadn't spoken. Let her rip! Another dud! That was a rotten one. Why, you haven't got the range right even now, you rotters!"

Wasn't it queer, jawing away like that, while they were hammering the stuffing out of our line? By the way, though I couldn't tell it then, our artillery was blazing away at them all the time. The fire was so tremendous that we positively had no idea our guns were in it at all. But, as a matter of fact, they were lambasting Old Harry out of the Boche support lines and communications, and the countless shells roaring over our heads were, half of them, our own.

It seemed pretty clear to me that this bombardment was on a very narrow front, much less than our Company front even. It didn't seem to be much more than a platoon front. So I hurried along to the signals and let the O.C. know this. As I had expected, he told me to concentrate all the men, except sentries, on the flanks of the bombardment sector, all with smoke helmets on, rifles fully charged, bayonets fixed, and everything ready for instant action. He had already got our Lewis guns ready in the trench on both flanks. As a fact, "the Peacemaker" was doing as much observing as I was, and I made bold to tell him I thought it wasn't the thing for him to expose himself as much as he did.

"That's all right, old man," he shouted. "I'm looking out. I'll be careful, and you do the same. Here, stick your pipe in your mouth! It helps with the men."

I'd had to tell him that in the centre and on the extreme left we had had a few casualties. The stretcher-bearers were doing their best for them.

Not many minutes afterwards the curtain of fire appeared to be shifting back. The row was just as great, or greater. The smoke was just as dense, and there was a deal more gas in it. But it seemed to me there were very few shells actually landing along our front, and I could see the flashes of them bursting continuously a little in our rear.

As I got to the left flank of the bombarded sector I found Taffy directing the fire of a machine-gun diagonally across the front. The men were all out there, and you could see them itching for the word to get over the parapet. Their faces were quite changed. Upon my word, I'd hardly have known some of 'em. They had the killing look, and nearly every man was fiddling with his bayonet, making sure he had the good steel ready for Fritz. Seeing they were all serene, I made my way along to the other flank. I hardly thought about it, but just went, and that shows there's something shapes our ends, doesn't it? I should have been pretty sick afterwards if I hadn't made that way when I did.

The first thing I saw on that flank was a couple of men lifting poor R——'s body from the bottom of the trench. The Infant had been killed instantaneously. His head was absolutely smashed. He had been the most popular officer in our mess since we came out.

There was no time to think, but the sight of the Infant, lying there dead, sent a kind of sudden heat through me from inside; as I felt it on patrol that night. I hurried on, with Corporal Slade close on my heels. The gassy smoke was very dense. Round the next traverse was the little bay from which the other machine-gun had been firing. It wasn't firing now. Two men were lying dead close beside it, and another badly wounded; and half across the parapet was Sergeant T——, who'd been in charge of the gun, being hauled out by his arms by two Boches, while two other Boches stood by, one holding his rifle with bayonet fixed, in the thrust position, as if inclined to run T—— through. The other Boches were shouting something in German. They wanted to make T—— prisoner. There was blood on one side of his neck. The insolence of the thing made me quite mad for the minute, and I screamed at those Boches like a maniac.

It seems rum, but they turned and bolted into the smoke; I after them as hard as I could pelt. I shot one in the back with my revolver. He fell and, as I came up with him, I snatched his rifle from the ground beside him. I was like a lunatic. Then, just as suddenly, I came to my senses. The other Boches were out of sight in the smoke. I jumped back into the trench and put Corporal Slade on to the machine-gun, telling him to keep traversing that front. I ran farther down the trench to discover what had happened. The fire trench dipped there into a wooded hollow. The pounding of it had levelled the whole place till you could hardly make out the trench line.

Here I found the bulk of my own platoon furiously scrapping with thirty or forty Boches over the parapet. It was splendid. I can't describe the feeling, as one rushed into it. But it was absolutely glorious. And it gave me my first taste of bayonet work in earnest—with a Boche bayonet in my hand, mark you. Made me quite glad of the bayonet practice we had at home with Sergeant W——, after he'd had the course at Aldershot. No. 1 Platoon had never let the beggars get as far as our trench, but met 'em outside. To give them their due, those Boches didn't try any of their "Kamerade" business. They did fight—until they saw half their number stuck and down; and then they turned and bolted for it into the dense smoke over No Man's Land.

They were most of 'em bayoneted in the back before I could get my fellows to turn. I didn't want them to go far in that dense fog of gassy smoke, and there was hardly any daylight left. I didn't want them tumbling into any ambush. On the way back we gathered up a score of Boche knives, a lot of their caps, two or three rifles, and a whole box of their hand grenades, with not one missing.

That was the end of the first bombardment we've seen. It lasted exactly an hour, and our gunners tell us the Boche sent more than 5000 shells over in that time. He has certainly knocked our line about rather badly. All hands are at work now repairing the trench and the wire, with a whole Company of R.E. to help. Our casualties were eighteen wounded and seven killed. We buried thirty-one dead Boches, and they removed a good many dead. We got eleven wounded and nine unwounded Boche prisoners. Of course, they took a lot of their wounded away. They captured no prisoners from us.

I am sorry to say that another of our officers, Tony, is among the wounded, but the M.O. says he'll be back with us in a week. If only we could say that of the Infant! We are all sad about him; such a brave lad! but mighty pleased with the Company. The Brigadier says the Company has done splendidly. He was specially glad to know that the Boche collared no prisoners from us. It was our first taste, really, of bombardment, and of hand-to-hand fighting; and the men are now much keener even than they were before to get the Boche. They swear he shall pay dearly for the Infant and for six of their mates. They mean it, too, believe me. And we mean to help them get their payment. There isn't so much as a scratch on your

"Temporary Gentleman."