trenches and the place is whirlwinded with showers of death and
destruction.

When the Warwicks had completed our educational course, there was no
detail of handling the guns with which we were not acquainted, and
thoroughly so, and I had the honor of being in charge of my gun, due to
the accuracy in my work. I think my chest expansion increased a trifle,
but my cap did not get any smaller.

At the end of ten days we left Meteren, arriving there February 28. It
was on the way from Meteren that I received my battle christening; the
ceremony was performed by a bevy of six airplanes, two of them flying
low and doing the sprinkling honors with a fusillade of bombs, dropped
on the road round about us. They left twenty or twenty-five of these
calling cards, but two of the batteries of anti-aircraft guns handled by
the Warwicks greeted them so warmly that they quickly decided they had
overstaid their welcome and made a hurried departure.

When the battery arrived at its designated point, we proceeded to
camouflage the guns with the artistry we had derived from our
instruction, covering them securely with grass and brushwood.

It was at this time that I lost not only my increased chest expansion,
but also a trifle more, because I was ordered to take my gun to a
position known as the sacrifice gun position, three hundred yards back
of the front line trench. It derives its name, "sacrifice gun," from the
fact that rarely, if ever, in case of a heavy enemy raid, does the gun
or any of its crew escape. This "honor" I was destined to receive many
times throughout my career in the Great Adventure.