proceeded up the railway cutting. Shells were falling fairly
fast, as indeed they always seemed to along this cut. At
last we got our knife-rests up by the Hill and dumped them
there. Fortunately we had very few casualties. We started to
go back, but, half-way, we were stopped at the Brigade
Headquarters, a badly damaged barn, and were told that we
had to make another journey with bombs. We were just getting
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