my guide and I came upon a
gunner Colonel standing outside his dug-out and trying to watch the
progress of the battle through his field-glasses.

"Good-morning," he said.

"Good-morning, sir," I replied.

This opening of our little conversation was not meant to be in the
least ironical, I can assure you. It seemed quite natural at the time.

"Where are you hit?" he asked.

"In the thigh, sir. I don't think it's anything very bad."

"Good. How are we getting on?"

"Well, I really can't say much for certain, sir. But I got nearly to
their front line."

Walking was now becoming exceedingly painful and we proceeded slowly.
I choked the groans that would rise to my lips and felt a cold
perspiration pouring freely from my face. It was easier to get along
by taking hold of the sides of the trench with my hands than by being
supported by my guide. A party of bombers or carriers of some
description passed us. We stood on one side to let them go by. In
those few seconds my wound became decidedly stiffer, and I wondered if
I would ever reach the end of the trenches on foot. At length the
communication trench passed through a belt of trees, and we found
ourselves in Cross Street.

Here was a First Aid Post, and R.A.M.C. men were hard at work. I had
known those trenches for a month past, and I had never thought that
Cross Street could appear so homelike. Hardly a shell was falling and
the immediate din of battle had subsided. The sun was becoming hot,
but the trees threw refreshing shadows over the wide, shallow
brick-floored trenches built by the French two years before. The
R.A.M.C. orderlies were speaking pleasant words, and men not too badly
wounded were chatting gaily. I noticed a dresser at work on a man near
by, and was pleased to find that the man whose wounds were being
attended to was my servant L----. His wound was in the hip, a nasty
hole drilled by a machine-gun bullet at close quarters. He showed me
his water-bottle, penetrated by another bullet, which had inflicted a
further, but slight, wound.

There were many more serious cases than mine to be attended to. After
about five or ten minutes an orderly slit up my breeches.

"The wound's in the front of the hip," I said.

"Yes, but there's a larger wound where the bullets come out, sir."

I looked and saw a gaping hole two inches in diameter.

"I think that's a Blighty one, isn't it?" I remarked.

"I should just think so, sir!" he replied.

"Thank Go