After the bombardment of Ypres there still remained seven more days before our memorable nineteen days’ sojourn in the ghastly Salient was to end.  And memorable those days certainly were.  Nearly every day brought with it some fresh adventure.  For any boy who, like this boy, craved for excitement, and, while hating war theoretically and disliking it temperamentally, was not blind to the romance and grand drama of it all, there was ample satisfaction in the Great War; and perhaps on no other sector of the line did all the factors which are conducive to excitement obtain as they did in the dead city of the Salient and the shell-ploughed fields around it.

My diary of July 14 carries on as follows: 

“Up about 2 a.m.  Twenty-eight more men in B Company reported sick with gas, but they were not sent to hospital.  The M.O. said that they would be excused duty to-night and must report sick to-morrow morning.  We had a little more gas in the afternoon.  I think a German heavy exploded one of our own gas dumps near the Canal Bank.  A dense cloud of vapour rose in that vicinity, and we felt the smell slowly drifting towards us in the almost breathless calm of a bright summer afternoon.  Giffin, who was the senior officer present at the time, ordered respirators on.  But it did not last long, so we went on with our tea.

“In the evening Giffin and I were on a working party with Sergeant Clews, Sergeant Dawson and forty-five other ranks.  We proceeded to Potijze Dump and drew tools; thence to Pagoda Trench and carried on with the making of a new trench branching off that trench.  All went well for the first three quarters of an hour.  Our guns were pounding the German trenches the whole time—­the first preliminaries in the bombardment preceding our offensive.  But the Germans do not always allow us to have all our own way in these matters; they always retaliate.  And, by Jove, we did get some retaliation too!  At 10.50 p.m. quite suddenly, a heavy shell exploded just near us; and a regular strafe commenced.  I was standing near a shell-hole at the time, so I immediately crouched where I was; the men digging at the trench at once took refuge in the trench.  In a few minutes I mustered sufficient courage to make a dash for the trench.  I got there just in time, for, soon afterwards, a shell burst almost where I had been.  They were dropping all round us, both in front of and behind the trench.  Only the trench could possibly have saved us.  And it was a marvel that no one was hurt as it was.  I honestly expected every moment to be my last; it was a miracle that none of our party were hit.  If we had remained out in the open I firmly believe that the whole lot would have been knocked out.  It seemed as if it was never going to cease.  I never went through such a disagreeable experience in my life before.  Then, to crown all, gas shells began to be mixed with the others.  There was soon a regular stink of gas; I smelt it this time all right.  We got our