caused.

Some splendid work was done after the place had caught fire. One
officer, in spite of the great risk he ran from bursting shells, got the
ammunition train off safely to the 4th army. Thanks to him, the men up
the line were able to carry on as if nothing had happened, till further
supplies could be sent from other dumps. It was estimated that four
days' worth of shells from all the factories in England had been
destroyed.

An M.T. officer got all the cars and lorries out of the sheds and
instructed the drivers to take them as far from the danger zone as
possible, while the Captain in charge of the "Archie" Battery stuck to
his guns; and he and his men remained in the middle of that inferno
hidden in holes in their dug-out, from which it was impossible to rescue
them for two days.

Five days after the explosion Gutsie and I were detailed to go to
Audricq for some measles cases, and we reported first to the Camp
Commandant, who was sitting in the remains of his office, a shell
sticking up in the floor and half his roof blown away.

He gave us permission to see the famous crater, and instructed one of
the subalterns to show us round. There were still fires burning and
shells popping in some parts and the scenes of wreckage were almost
indescribable.

The young officer was not particularly keen to take us at all and said
warningly, "You come at your own risk--there are nothing but live shells
lying about, liable to go off at any moment. Be careful," he said to me,
"you're just stepping on one now." I hopped off with speed, but all the
same we were not a whit discouraged, which seemed to disappoint him.

As Gutsie and I stumbled and rolled over 4.2's and hand grenades I
quoted to her from the "Fuse-top collectors"--"You can generally 'ear
'em fizzin' a bit if they're going to go 'orf, 'Erb!" by way of
encouragement. Trucks had been lifted bodily by the concussion, and
could be seen in adjacent fields; many of the sheds had been half blown
away, leaving rows of live shells lying snugly in neat piles, but as
there was no knowing when they might explode it was decided to scrap the
whole dump when the fires had subsided.

We walked up a small hill literally covered with shells and empty hand
grenades of the round cricket ball type, two of which were given to us
to make into match boxes. Every description of shell was there as far as
the eye could see, and some were empty and others were not. We reached
the summi