that on our left things were going very badly. Two battalions were
hurried across, and then, of course, the attack developed even more
fiercely on our right.

Wounded began to come through--none groaning, but just men with their
eyes clenched and great crimson bandages.

An order was sent to the transport to clear back off the road. There was
a momentary panic. The waggons came through at the gallop and with them
some frightened foot-sloggers, hanging on and running for dear life.
Wounded men from the firing line told us that the shrapnel was
unbearable in the trenches.

A man came galloping up wildly from the Heavies. They had run out of
fuses. Already we had sent urgent messages to the ammunition lorries,
but the road was blocked and they could not get up to us. So Grimers was
sent off with a haversack--mine--to fetch fuses and hurry up the
lorries. How he got there and back in the time that he did, with the
traffic that there was, I cannot even now understand.

It was now about two o'clock, and every moment the news that we heard
grew worse and worse, while the wounded poured past us in a continuous
stream. I gave my water-bottle to one man who was moaning for water. A
horse came galloping along. Across the saddle-bow was a man with a
bloody scrap of trouser instead of a leg, while the rider, who had been
badly wounded in the arm, was swaying from side to side.

A quarter of an hour before the brigade on our right front had gone into
action on the crest of the hill. Now they streamed back at the trot, all
telling the tale--how, before they could even unlimber, shells had come