“Yesterday evening I was supervising a working party under Sergeant Noden, repairing the parapet of a trench.  All was quiet while we were at it; but I knew that a raid, about a mile away on our right, was fixed for 1.30 this morning.  So, my party having finished their job, I brought them away at 1.20 and got them all back in their dug-outs by 1.30.  Then, just as I entered our Company Headquarters dug-out at 1.30, the peaceful night was suddenly turned into hell.  With a thunderous noise shells came over from the German guns in hundreds.  Our dug-outs seemed to be their particular mark. (’When in doubt, shell Bilge!’ was a maxim which Bodington used to attribute to the enemy artillery opposite us.) The place shook.  Captain Blamey, Captain Bodington, Beesley, Dickinson and I were inside.  We began to think that the dug-out was going to be blown to atoms; but we occupied ourselves by eating some of the parkin you sent!  The candles were twice blown out by the force of the exploding shells.  It seemed impossible that anything could live in such a bombardment.  After about ten minutes of this the others went out, saying that all the officers in the Company should not crowd in the same dug-out during a bombardment because if a shell were to blow the dug-out to pieces we would all be knocked out, which would not do; so Dickinson and I alone remained.  I remarked to him that this was a pleasant welcome for him on his return from leave!  After 2 a.m. the bombardment began to slacken down; and by 2.15 it was all over, and quiet reigned again.  I noticed that it had begun to rain.  When we took stock we found that D Company had not suffered a single casualty on this occasion!  This struck me as being extraordinary when one takes into consideration the fact that our trench was simply packed like sardines with various returning working parties which had all got congested here—­working parties from various companies and regiments; there were some Irish amongst them.  It was amusing to listen to the language:  men shouting, with all kinds of unmentionable oaths, to each other to get a ’bloody move on for ——­ sake!’

“It is amusing what a number of new men, ’obviously Derbyites and conscripts,’ as Beesley said the other day, have got the wind up.  One incident of the kind, related by Captain Bodington, was very funny.  He was walking along a trench last night and a man came rushing along as if the whole German Army were chasing him; and he bumped right into Bodington, nearly sending him flying.  Bodington asked him whatever was the matter; and the man replied in a voice of abject terror, ’They’re sniping at us up there, sir!’