to
be great "strafing" that night, that the Boches were very good
gunners, but that they and the French sometimes became
quarrelsome and loosed off at each other like fury for a short
time, both sides doing very little real damage. As we were
chatting a long whistle-blast betokened the presence of a Taube,
and our companions quickly dragged us out of sight into a
dug-out, lest the enemy airman should spot men about and send
back the range. You must understand that the guns are so
concealed that it is almost impossible to see them even when you
know where they are located. After the aerial visitor cleared
off, we had a great tea, with all the ground about us shaking to
the reverberation of the battery discharges. Presently a
long-drawn-out screech in the distance, and a fearful crash in
the middle distance. "That's Percy again!" said the Artillery
officer. We found that "Percy" is the name for a German
17-incher, which frequently drops shells ten miles behind our
lines. The smallest crater made by his shells would accommodate a
locomotive engine with ease. "Percy" is no doubt "some gun," as
the Yankees would say. It was a curious sensation to walk about
the fields with shells from both sides flying over one's head.
Some gas shells had been discharged that day, and the air in
places was quite heavy with the odour of them--not unpleasant to
smell, but most mephitic, and apt to make your eyes water.

Whom do you think I met on the main road up to-day? None other
than Reggie Lloyd, who was one of my best pals at Dulwich. Our
car was moving very fast and overtook his. I stopped and jumped
out, and we exchanged a firm handshake and a few words before we
had to be moving on again "in the cause of duty." He is a second
lieutenant in the R.E., and looked thundering fit. To-day I saw
him again. On this occasion he was moving about fifty miles an
hour on a motor-bike, and we only had time for a hand-wave as
we passed. What a thrill to meet an old pal like that out here in
the fire zone!

_August 28th, 1915._

To go up the road from here to the firing-line is a great
experience. You see, as you pass along, all the multifarious
items of army organisation--long lines of lorries, horsed-wagons,
limbers,