a few of these bombs out of the barn when the Boches landed three shells right on top of it.  Many of our men were laid out, but we had to leave them and try to get as much ammunition out as possible.  The barn soon caught fire, and this made the task a very dangerous one indeed.  Every minute we were expecting the whole lot of ammunition to go up, but our officer had already taken a watch on it and gave the alarm just a few seconds before the whole building went clean up into the air.

“We then began to retrace our steps along the railway out to the Hill.  Each man carried two boxes of bombs.  Just as we reached the communication trench, leading on to the Hill itself, the Boches sent over several of the tear-gas shells.  We stumbled about half-blind, rubbing our eyes.  The whole party realised that the boys holding the Hill needed the bombs, so we groped our way along as best we could, snuffling and coughing, our eyes blinking and streaming.  We stood at intervals and passed the bombs from one to the other, and had nearly completed our job when the word came down that no one was to leave the Hill, as a counter-attack was taking place a few minutes before 6 o’clock.  We had then been at it for nearly ten hours.  By this time the bombardment from both sides was stupendous; every gun on each side seemed concentrated on this one little stretch, on this small mound.

“Six o’clock came and I heard a shrill whistle and knew that our boys were just going over the top.  Immediately there was a deafening rattle of machine guns and rifle fire.  And then a stream of wounded poured down this communication trench.  The wounds were terrible, mostly bayonet.  None were dressed; there had been no time, they were just as they had been received.  Many a poor chap succumbed to his injuries as he staggered along our trench.  To keep the gangway clear we had to lift these dead bodies out and put them on the top of the parapets.  It was ghastly, but you get accustomed to ghastly things out here.  You realise that fifty dead bodies are not equal to one living.  And these poor fellows, who only a few minutes before had been alive and full of vigour, were now just blocking the trench.  And so we simply lifted the bodies out and cast them over the top.  By this time the trench was absolutely full of wounded, and our little party was told to act as stretcher-bearers, and to get the stretcher cases down.  We were only too glad to do something to help.  The first man that my chum and I carried died half-way down the cutting.  We felt sorry for him, but could do nothing.  He was dead.  So we lifted his body on to the side of the track and returned for the living.  This work lasted some considerable time, and when more stretcher-bearers came up, most of the cases had been carried down, so we returned to the Convent exhausted, nerve-shaken, and very glad of the opportunity of a few hours’ sleep.  The sights we had seen, the nerve-racking