France, May 12th, 1915.

I am glad you had your mind at rest by the rumour that we were in reserve.
What newspaper work! The poor old artillery never gets any mention,
and the whole show is the infantry. It may interest you to note on your map
a spot on the west bank of the canal, a mile and a half north of Ypres,
as the scene of our labours. There can be no harm in saying so,
now that we are out of it. The unit was the most advanced
of all the Allies' guns by a good deal except one French battery
which stayed in a position yet more advanced for two days,
and then had to be taken out. I think it may be said that we saw the show
from the soup to the coffee.


France, May 17th, 1915.

The farther we get away from Ypres the more we learn of the enormous power
the Germans put in to push us over. Lord only knows how many men they had,
and how many they lost. I wish I could embody on paper
some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days. All the gunners
down this way passed us all sorts of `kudos' over it. Our guns --
those behind us, from which we had to dodge occasional prematures --
have a peculiar bang-sound added to the sharp crack of discharge.
The French 75 has a sharp wood-block-chop sound, and the shell goes over
with a peculiar whine -- not unlike a cat, but beginning with n --
thus, -- n-eouw. The big fellows, 3000 yards or more behind,
sounded exactly like our own, but the flash came three or four seconds
before the sound. Of the German shells -- the field guns come