ror,
threw shell after shell into the dressing station, killing and wounding
afresh the gallant lads who had gone "over the top" that morning. They
seemed to know of this place and played upon it with a gloating,
fiendish glee worthy only of unspeakable savages.

As I was passing one group of wounded, I ran against my doctor friend of
the night before.

"Busy day for you?" I said.

"My word, yes," he replied. "They are coming faster than I can attend to
them. I am just off to see P----. He's caught it badly."

"Serious?" I asked.

"Yes, rather; in the back. He's in the dug-out."

And the doctor rushed away. I followed him. P---- was lying there on a
stretcher looking ghastly. The doctor was bending over him. Poor old
chap. Only that morning he had hooked me out to film the sunken road
scenes as full of life and hope as anyone could conceive. Now he was on
his back, a broken wreck. In the trenches there were hundreds of cases
as bad, or even worse, but they did not affect me. There were far too
many for the mind to fully grasp their meaning. But down here in this
dark dug-out, twenty feet below the earth, the sombre surroundings only
illuminated by a guttering candle in a bottle, I was far more affected.
It was natural though, for one always feels things more when some one
one knows is concerned.

P---- was the first to speak.

"Hullo, old man," he said in a husky, low voice. "You've pulled
through?"

"Yes," I replied. "But 'touchwood'! I'm so sorry. Anyway, you're all
right for 'Blighty,'" and to cheer him up I continued in a bantering
strain: "You knew how to manage it, eh? Jolly artful, you know." His
face lighted up with a wan smile.

"Yes, Malins, rather a long 'Blighty,' I'm afraid."

Two stretcher-bearers came in at that moment to take him away. With
difficulty they got him out of the trench, and grasping his hand I bade
him good-bye.

"I'm glad you got our boys, Malins. I do so want to see that film," were
his last words.

"I'll show it to you when I get back to England," I called after him,
and then he disappeared.

The fighting was now beginning to die down. The remnants of four
regiments were coming in. Each section was accumulating in spaces on
their own. I realised that the roll-call was about to take place. I
filmed them as they staggered forward and dropped down utterly worn out,
body and soul. By an almost superhuman effort many of them staggered to
their feet again, and formed themsel