army mules, and tragedies. I saw one bicycle orderly: a shell exploded
and he seemed to pedal on for eight or ten revolutions and then collapsed
in a heap -- dead. Straggling soldiers would be killed or wounded,
horses also, until it got to be a nightmare. I used to shudder every time
I saw wagons or troops on that road. My dugout looked out on it.
I got a square hole, 8 by 8, dug in the side of the hill (west),
roofed over with remnants to keep out the rain, and a little sandbag parapet
on the back to prevent pieces of "back-kick shells" from coming in,
or prematures from our own or the French guns for that matter.
Some straw on the floor completed it. The ground was treacherous
and a slip the first night nearly buried ----. So we had to be content
with walls straight up and down, and trust to the height of the bank
for safety. All places along the bank were more or less alike,
all squirrel holes.

This morning we supported a heavy French attack at 4.30;
there had been three German attacks in the night, and everyone was tired.
We got heavily shelled. In all eight or ten of our trees were cut by shells
-- cut right off, the upper part of the tree subsiding heavily
and straight down, as a usual thing. One would think a piece a foot long
was just instantly cut out; and these trees were about 18 inches in diameter.
The gas fumes came very heavily: some blew down from the infantry trenches,
some came from the shells: one's eyes smarted, and breathing
was very laboured. Up to noon to-day we fired 2500 rounds. Last night
Col. Morrison and I slept at a French Colonel's headquarters near by,
and in the night our room was filled up with wounded. I woke up
and shared my bed with a chap with "a wounded leg and a chill".
Probably thirty wounded were brought into the one little room.

Col. ----, R.A., kept us in communication with the French General