nto the cellar, and it was some minutes before
I could see clearly again. My companions were standing there, calmly
awaiting events.

The frightful din continued. It was nothing but high explosives, high
explosive shrapnel, ordinary shrapnel, trench bombs, and bullets from
German machine-guns. One incessant hail of metal. Who on earth could
live in it? What worried me most was that there was not sufficient light
to film the scene; but, thank Heaven, it was gradually getting lighter.

It was now 5 a.m. The shelling continued with increasing intensity. I
got my apparatus together, and with two men decided to make my way to
the position in the front line.

[Illustration: WITH MY AEROSCOPE CAMERA AFTER FILMING THE BATTLE OF ST.
ELOI]

Shouldering my camera I led the way, followed by the men at a distance
of twenty yards. Several times on the journey shrapnel balls and
splinters buried themselves in the mud close by. When I reached the
firing trench all our men were standing to arms, with grim faces,
awaiting their orders. I fixed up the tripod so that the top of it came
level with our parapet, and fastened the camera upon it. It topped the
parapet of our firing trench (the Germans only forty-five yards away),
and to break the alignment I placed sandbags on either side of it.

In this position I stood on my camera case, and started to film the
Battle of St. Eloi.

Our shells were dropping in all directions, smashing the German parapets
to pulp and blowing their dug-outs sky-high. The explosions looked
gorgeous against the ever-increasing light in the sky. Looking through
my view-finder, I revolved first on one section then on the other; from
a close view of 6-inch shells and "Minnies" bursting to the more distant
view of our 9.2. Then looking right down the line, I filmed the clouds
of smoke drifting from the heavy (woolly bears) or high shrapnel, then
back again. Shells--shells--shells--bursting masses of molten metal,
every explosion momentarily shaking the earth.

The Germans suddenly started throwing "Minnies" over, so revolving my
camera, I filmed them bursting over our men. The casualties were very
slight. For fully an hour I stood there filming this wonderful scene,
and throughout all the inferno, neither I nor my machine was touched. A
fragment of shrapnel touched my tripod, taking a small piece out of the
leg. That was all!

Shortly after seven o'clock the attack subsided, and as my film had all
been used