We rapidly commenced replacing the burnt-out candles, and just then we heard the warning roar of a coming shell, but before it burst I heard a splash; it was Dory taking a header into a shell hole full of water; I threw myself flat.  In adjusting our lamps we had to remove our gas helmets, and after waiting some time for the expected explosion and hearing none, I looked up; white fumes were rising from the ground at about the spot the shell had entered; there had been no explosion of splinters.

This particular shell is very thin, is fired with great velocity, and when meeting resistance it breaks and cracks and the white gas fumes like steam come floating out.  “What do you think of that, Grant!” from Dory in the shell hole; “I thought the blankety-blank was a Jack Johnson.”  His thought had cost him a soaking and the reflex action of his thought was strongly in evidence during the balance of our watch.

The remainder of our lonely duty was not enhanced in pleasure by the contemplation of scores of stretcher bearers carrying out men who had been caught unprepared by the gas and who were choking and suffocating from its effects.

So earnestly pernicious is the gas device as a fighting weapon that it is a matter of common talk among the boys that Fritz, when he invented his contrivance, must have been in direct communication with his Satanic Majesty.

Working tooth and nail to smother the Hun, and he in turn working might and main to smother us, was the order of the day continuously throughout the campaign on the Somme, and a few nights following the happening above, Dory and myself were on S.O.S. sentry.

About 3:00 o’clock A.M. the messages from Germany started coming and our replies were mailed back as fast as the postal authorities at the guns could handle the matter; in fact, throughout our campaign on the Somme we mailed our replies and our additional messages so rapidly and so effectively, that nine times out of ten Fritzie’s working force was swamped.

On this A.M. his shells were gas which glazed the feed lamps and the sight of the lenses, as well as accumulating in the inside of the gun muzzle, making it necessary to swab out the muzzle of the gun before using, as otherwise it would rust badly, which would result in putting the gun out of commission in short order.  The fire developed into a first-class artillery duel, our battery and nine others answering ten German batteries.  The net result of the duel was two of Fritzie’s guns put out of business.

Before long our lamps on the sandbags, by which we got our light to see to work the guns, were knocked off by an explosion and we were in darkness; following that, the springs in the buffer of my gun were broken, making it necessary to put it back in place by hand.  Each time the gun is fired it recoils and is brought back to place by the hydraulic buffer containing the spring; but we had to perform this work in the darkness by hand.  The coals of Hades were now coming in heavier each moment, because heavier caliber pieces had opened up on us, and we were getting the worst of it; our weightier sisters must take a hand at the game, and we kept up our end of the argument until this could be done.