Here we left the road and took a chance of getting across the open country, picking our way in the fields among the shell holes, eventually getting in back of the Garden, where we strung our wagons in the rear until the order “Ammunition up!” was given, and out from the dugouts rushed the men to unload the precious cargo.  Here the captain and lieutenant were wounded, but they refused to go to hospital, saying their wounds were too slight; and, indeed, I can honestly say that every man that night who was wounded and could manage to hold out, did so; each one seemed to be imbued with the idea that his presence was absolutely necessary for the success of the plan in hand.

“You did not need to come back, Grant,” said the Major, upon my return.  “I intended you should stay at the wagon lines tonight.”

“Thank you, sir, but I’d rather be back.”

“That’s right, that’s how we all feel.”

That I was more than pleased at this mark of approval from my O.C. goes without saying.

Chains of men formed from the ammunition wagons into the gun pit, shells were passed from hand to hand to the guns where the men were waiting them, and I thought I saw tears of joy in the eyes of the Tommy as he caressed the first shell handed him.  “That’s for luck,” he cried, as he spat on it.  The gunners exploded them as fast as they were given them.  The work was proceeding nicely when an airplane, flying low over the Garden, spotted our ammunition wagons; he signaled the place back to his batteries and shells from the guns behind hill 60 opened up on us; it became exceedingly violent; many of the horses and wagons were smashed.

This was the order all night long,—­wagons arriving with shells, shells passing from hand to hand to the guns, discharged by the gunners as fast as they were received, and enemy shells rained at us without let-up.  We were at our posts all night long.  Before daybreak the storm slackened and we got a breathing spell for a few hours.

Immediately after breakfast, at daybreak, the concert opened up afresh, and for full seven days, June 2, to June 9, no man got a full hour’s sleep at a time.  When not being shelled by the German batteries, the machine gun bullets were raining around; if neither of these agencies of hell were busy, airplanes were flying, many times so low that they seemed to be even with the tops of the trees and singing us their humming hymn of hate.  An idea of the deadly nature of the conflict may be had from the first day’s casualties, that covered several thousand of our men.

On the seventh day the German fire was so heavy it was impossible to get ammunition up to the guns, and we pulled the backs out of the gun pit as fast as we could smash them, man-handled the guns out of the Garden down on to a little unused road in the rear of the railroad, three-quarters of a mile southwest of the Garden; here the grass was a foot or two in length, and we covered the guns with it and some brush, dug out some large shell holes for them, then the wagons pulled up there, unloading the ammunition, eight hundred to a thousand rounds apiece, and we got orders to open up as an “S.O.S.” came from the trenches.