he water I saw
such things, and such stenches assailed my nostrils, as I shall not
easily forget. Dotted all over the place, half in and half out of the
mud and water, were dead bodies.

But why recount the horrors of the scene? Imagine the sights and the
smell. How I got through that section of trench Heaven only knows. It
was simply ghastly.

To escape from the scene I hurried to the end of the trench and again
crossed "No Man's Land." The sight here was not so bad as in the
trenches. To obtain a good view of the spot I got up very gingerly on
top of the parapet, fixed the machine, and filmed the scene. But this
enterprise nearly put an end to my adventure, _and also to the other
members of the party_. I had finished taking, and had got my camera down
on the stand, in the bottom of the trench, and was on the point of
unscrewing it, when two shells came hurtling overhead and exploded about
forty feet away. The Major ran up to me and shouted that I had been
seen, and told me to take cover at once. He and the others, suiting the
action to the word, dived below the parapets. Snatching the camera off
its stand, I followed, and paddled as close as possible to the mud. The
shells began falling in quick succession. Nearer and nearer they came.
Some just cleared the parapet top; some burst in front, some immediately
behind.

"They have got our line; let's shift along further," some one said.

From one point of the trench to the other we dodged. The shells seemed
to follow us wherever we went. Crash! One struck the crumbling parapet
on the very spot where, a few seconds before, I had been sheltering. In
the rush for cover I had lost the handle of the camera, and as it was
the only one I had there, I began to work my way back to find it.

"Don't be a fool," called the Major. "If you show yourself they'll have
you, as sure as eggs are eggs." But my anxiety to obtain pictures of the
bursting shells was too much for me. I set to to make a handle of wood.
Looking round, I spotted an old tree-trunk, behind which I could take
cover. Doubling towards it, I crouched down, and finding a piece of wood
and an old nail I fashioned a handle of a sort.

At this moment a funny incident occurred. I had momentarily forgotten
the existence of the other members of the party. I was hoping against
hope that they had escaped injury. What had happened to them? Where were
they? It almost seemed as if my thoughts were communicated by telepathy
to