hen returning from Brigade Headquarters near Wieltje, I saw a
magnificent display of fireworks to the South. I afterwards heard that
it was the night the British attacked Hill 60.

On Sunday, the 18th of April, I had a service for the 15th Battalion
in one of the stories of the brick building beside the canal.
Something told me that big things were going to happen. I had a
feeling that we were resting on the top of a volcano. At the end of
the service I prepared for any sudden call to ministration on the
battlefield by reserving the Blessed Sacrament.

On Monday some men had narrow escapes when a house was shelled and on
the following day I went to the centre of the town with two officers
to see the house which had been hit. They appeared to be in a hurry to
get to the Square, so I went up one of the side streets to look (p. 056)
at the damaged house. In a cellar near by I found an old woman making
lace. Her hunchback son was sitting beside her. While I was making a
few purchases, we heard the ripping sound of an approaching shell. It
grew louder, till at last a terrific crash told us that the monster
had fallen not far off. At that moment a number of people crowded into
an adjoining cellar, where they fell on their knees and began to say a
litany. I stood at the door looking at them. It was a pitiful sight.
There were one or two old men and some women, and some little children
and a young girl who was in hysterics. They seemed so helpless, so
defenceless against the rain of shells.

I went off down the street towards the Square where the last shell had
fallen, and there on the corner I saw a large house absolutely crushed
in. It had formerly been a club, for there were billiard tables in the
upper room. The front wall had crashed down upon the pavement, and from
the debris some men were digging out the body of an officer who had
been standing there when the shell fell. His was the first terribly
mangled body that I had ever seen. He was laid face downwards on a
stretcher and borne away. At that moment a soldier came up and told me
that one of the officers with whom I had entered the town about half
an hour ago had been killed, and his body had been taken to a British
ambulance in the city. I walked across the Square, and there I saw the
stretcher-bearers carrying off some civilians who had been hit by
splinters of the shell. In the hospital were many dead bodies and
wounded men for there had been over one hundred