ery
confined--the bunks being roughly six feet long and the room rather
over six feet high.

One observer stood in the narrow passage outside the door as sentry
and gas guard. He was of course relieved every four hours, and at
night there were generally two on duty. The other observers who were
not on this duty held a post about Hillside Farm about a mile forward
of Dan Cottages. This was not altogether a healthy spot, but a good
view was obtained towards Moorslede.

In this area observers were asked to pay special attention to the
enemy's shelling, noticing the direction from which the sound of the
firing came and the areas shelled and approximately the number of
rounds. I had of course to write out the Brigade Intelligence Report
each morning. The last night we were in these quarters a number of
gas-shells were fired round the batteries and B.H.Q. They made the
atmosphere very unpleasant; and though they were not thick enough to
necessitate wearing the respirator, I suffered, especially the
following night, from their effects.

On December 20 we were relieved and moved back to the rest area at
Brandhoek, where we were glad to have four days' rest. On Christmas
Eve we moved to our old quarters at Ypres, and the following night we
had an excellent Christmas dinner thanks to the good services of
Lieut. Behrens, our French interpreter, an old machine-gunner of
Verdun. On December 28 we again went to the front area and held the
line for four days. It was always the custom for one of the officers
of the Brigade to keep awake on duty during part of the night. We
took it in turns and did two-hour shifts. On the morning of December
31 it happened to be my turn to be awake on duty just about dawn. And
this saved me from a very rude awakening. That morning the enemy had
decided on a bombardment of our Divisional front and he commenced
proceedings by shelling Dan Cottages with a battery of 4-inch naval
guns, a very accurate weapon. We got a shell on the roof of the
pill-box which gave a nasty concussion and put all the lights out.
That woke the rest of the Staff up except the Artillery Officer. I had
hardly got the lights on again when we got another shell on the roof.
Again the lights went out, and this time a piece of concrete fell out
of the roof and crashed on to the floor, knocking over some of our
belongings, but fortunately missing the officers inside.

A few small fragments of concrete also dropped on the face of the