to General Stockwell’s brigade at present:  we hang out here in the day-time, and go out on working parties in the trenches in the Salient at night.  But Captain Andrews said that I need not go out with them on this occasion.  So I remained behind and censored letters.  While doing so my eyes began to water—­about 11 to 11.30.  Then the Company mess-waiter, Private Saul (Captain Andrews’ batman), came in and told me that the Germans were sending over ‘tear gas.’  So on with my gas helmet.  The gas shells were bursting outside the windows; but I thought it safe to take off my helmet after a few minutes; my eyes watered a good deal, that was all.  At about midnight I went to bed.

“For three hours I slept quite comfortably.  At 3.15 I was awakened by a terrific row.  The whole place was shaking like an earthquake; the wall was quivering; our guns were firing rapid as fast as ever they could go; every gun in the city, in fact, every gun on the British Front for miles, was pounding the enemy with shells.  A man came in to say that the order was ‘everybody down in the cellar.’  So I threw some clothes on and went down there.  There was a crowd down there.  The parties which had been out working had returned, but not without casualties; there had been a few killed and wounded.  At a table in the centre of the room, a lamp on it, sat Captain Andrews, in his shirt sleeves, and other officers, seriously contemplating a message which had arrived, the purport of which they were trying to understand.  The man who had brought it was under arrest as a suspected spy; but after inquiries had been made at Brigade it was discovered that he was perfectly bona fide; So Major Brighten ordered him to be set free.

“I found myself next to Verity, so I asked him whatever all this hubbub was about.  He replied that it was the expected push on our right—­’the Messines push’—­taking place.  The New Zealanders (and Australians, the 36th Ulster Division, the 16th South Ireland Division, the 23rd Division, and the 47th London Division) were going over the top, and this was our barrage.  Captain Andrews said that this was a bombardment which our guns were conducting, double in intensity to any which we inflicted upon the enemy during the Battle of the Somme!  It was a row indeed, and it continued for some time.  Then dawn broke, and it had slackened.  At 5.30 we came upstairs and had some refreshment in the mess; the gramophone was set going (’The Bing Boys’—­’Another little drink wouldn’t do us any harm’—­was the precise record which was put on as soon as we entered the mess!); things were much quieter, but we were expecting the Germans to retaliate.”