, his servant being as usual somewhere else, he ventured
to ask for a little shaving water, in French of the first-steps variety.
"Oh, monsieur speaks French," she answered, quite ignoring the mess-tin
he held out. "Why did you not tell me?"--this last with an accusing
glance at A----, the senior subaltern. Lyte began to deny all knowledge
of the language, and she suddenly swung into English. "Nevair mind, I
speak bloody good English," and then amidst our whoops of applause she
demanded "It ees good? What!"

Lee came in one morning in a great state of excitement, his rich brogue
being augmented with the news he brought. It seemed that on going up to
his guns that morning he had found the farm there, till then occupied by
a Belgian family, vacated and the white half-door--so familiar in all
peasant countries where they keep pigs--placed lozenge-wise on the red
roof. A hasty search revealed a partly burnt map and other papers of a
military nature, and a German plane was already buzzing aloft. He had
hurriedly withdrawn his guns; but siege guns take time to move, and
before they could get away the shells were upon them and one gun crew
had been practically wiped out. He was much excited, as became a man who
had seen his first death.

We, too, had passed a very strenuous night. The Germans had commenced
another attack on our line, using the gas again. We were wondering how
much good the little respirators we were carrying would be, and the
answer came soon enough.

As we moved forward we met men falling back gasping, coughing and
sobbing, and the stink of their clothing was of hell's own reek, a choky
mixture of chlorine and sulphur. "It's not war, mate; it's bloody
murder!" was all one man gasped as he threw himself coughing on the
ground, where he died before we moved on. It was not a pretty sight, and
more than one rifle-butt was grasped the tighter and more than one oath
sworn to get at the fiends who had let loose this vile poison, against
which the only protection we had was a little pad of gauze to fasten
over the mouth and nose after soaking in water from our water-bottles.
These had been supplied by the thousand as soon as the authorities made
known their wants by the women and children of England, and, feeble
though this protection was, these simple little pads saved many lives
that week.

But it was not our fate to meet the enemy again while in the salient.
After continuing our march about another quarter-mil