look skyward, but still failed to place it. Presently the humming
stopped, and I thought it had departed, and seized the chance to go to
the cookhouse for a cup of tea. When almost there--Kr-kr-kr-p!
Kr-kr-kr-p! a slather of German guns had opened upon ours and the
fellows fled pell-mell from the gun pit and made for the culvert, taking
shelter underneath. They were there about a minute when a shell landed
straight on the culvert, going through eight feet of cement and brick,
blowing everything in all directions and killing 15 out of the 16 men
who had taken refuge there. Less than sixty seconds had elapsed since I
left the spot.

When the battle was at its greatest height a wonderful discovery was
made. Complaint had been made about the horses dropping on the road on
the way up. Some thought it was cramps, others, colic; the veterinary
officers were quite puzzled. One night 18 loads of ammunition, three
horses to a load, were on their way to the guns and ten of the horses
dropped. The vets then took it for granted there must have been poison
in the feed, and an examination disclosed that little steel oats were in
the grain. The oats had come from the United States and they had been
deposited in the grain there.

The discovery was so important that the O.C. offered a prize of five
francs to every man discovering these death-dealing pellets in a bag of
oats. The bellies of the horses were secure forevermore, as far as these
pills of Kaiser Bill were concerned; those five francs did the trick;
every grain of the feed that went down the animals' throats first passed
an individual examination through the hands of every money-hungry Tommy
in the bunch.

After the third battle of Ypres had cooled down, we were permitted to go