.... Mr Kelly got it in the face, sir.... I'm afraid he's blinded."

"How was Major Veasey wounded?"

"In the arm and foot, sir.... Mr Wood was not so bad."

"There's no other officer at D Battery, sir," I said to the colonel,
who was already turning up the list of officers in his note-book.

"Tell him that the senior sergeant will take command until an officer
arrives," replied the colonel promptly, "and then get on to Drysdale at
the infantry. I'll speak to him.... I don't like the idea of Veasey
being wounded by a gas shell," he added quickly. Depression descended
upon all three of us.

The colonel told Captain Drysdale to inform the Infantry brigadier what
had happened, and to obtain his immediate permission to go to the
battery, about half a mile away. "You've got a subaltern at the waggon
line.... Get him up," advised the colonel, "the sergeant-major can
carry on there.... Tell the General that another officer will arrive as
soon as possible to do liaison."

The colonel looked again at his note-book. "We're frightfully down in
officers," he said at last. "I'll ask Colonel ---- of the --rd if he
can spare some one to take on to-night."

"I hope Veasey and Kelly are not badly wounded," he said later,
lighting a cigarette. "And I'm glad it didn't come last night, when
there were three battery commanders at the bridge party. That would
have been catastrophe."

That night the Boche rained gas shells all round our quarters in the
sunken road. Hubbard and myself and "Ernest" were not allowed much
sleep in our right little, tight little hut. One shell dropped within
twenty yards of us; thrice fairly heavy shell splinters played an
unnerving tattoo upon our thick iron roof; once we were forced to wear
our box-respirators for half an hour.

At 11.30 P.M. the colonel telephoned from his hut to ours to tell me
that new orders had come in from the brigade-major. "We are putting
down a barrage from midnight till 12.15 A.M.," he said. "You needn't
worry. I've sent out orders to the batteries.... Our infantry are
making an assault at 12.15 on Doleful Post. It ought to startle the
Hun. He won't expect anything at that hour."

XVI. THE DECISIVE DAYS

Sept. 22: It was as the colonel expected. The Boche took our hurricane
bombardment from midnight to 12.15 A.M. to be an unusually intense
burst of night-firing; and when our guns "lifted" some six hundred
yards, our infantry swept forward, and in a few minutes capt