led up for ten minutes just short of the position, where I
put Bonfire [his horse] with my groom in a farmyard, and went forward on
foot--only a quarter of a mile or so--then we advanced. Bonfire had soon
to move; a shell killed a horse about four yards away from him, and he
wisely took other ground. Meantime we went on into the position we were
to occupy for seventeen days, though we could not guess that. I can
hardly say more than that it was near the Yser Canal.

We got into action at once, under heavy gunfire. We were to the left
entirely of the British line, and behind French troops, and so we
remained for eight days. A Colonel of the R.A., known to fame, joined
us and camped with us; he was our link with the French Headquarters, and
was in local command of the guns in this locality. When he left us eight
days later he said, "I am glad to get out of this hell-hole." He was a
great comfort to us, for he is very capable, and the entire battle was
largely fought "on our own", following the requests of the Infantry on
our front, and scarcely guided by our own staff at all. We at once set
out to register our targets, and almost at once had to get into steady
firing on quite a large sector of front. We dug in the guns as quickly
as we could, and took as Headquarters some infantry trenches already
sunk on a ridge near the canal. We were subject from the first to a
steady and accurate shelling, for we were all but in sight, as were the
German trenches about 2000 yards to our front. At times the fire would
come in salvos quickly repeated. Bursts of fire would be made for ten
or fifteen minutes at a time. We got all varieties of projectile, from
3 inch to 8 inch, or perhaps 10 inch; the small ones usually as air
bursts, the larger percussion and air, and the heaviest percussion only.

My work began almost from the start--steady but never overwhelming,
except perhaps once for a few minutes. A little cottage behind our ridge
served as a cook-house, but was so heavily hit the second day that we
had to be chary of it. During bursts of fire I usually took the back
slope of the sharply crested ridge for what shelter it offered. At 3 our
1st and 4th arrived, and went into action at once a few hundred yards in
our rear. Wires were at once put out, to be cut by shells hundreds and
hundreds of times, but always repaired by our indefatigable linemen.
So the day wore on; in the night the shelling still kept up: three
different German at