for about forty-eight hours, so we found our way back to our
old billets in the outskirts of Ypres to get some bully beef and
biscuits.

The shelling still continued. Every minute a shell would break close
by and pieces would rattle against the wall of the house. I arranged
that Major Marshall was to go in the morning and gather up the men in
the reserve trenches and get them together, while I went to look up
any stragglers in the city and send them forward. I was also to find
the transport, which had been shelled out of their quarters at Ypres,
and arranged with them to send food to us that evening. I then wrapped
myself in my cloak and fell asleep on the floor to the weird sound of
the German shells passing overhead.

The next day was Sunday, but no peal of bells was heard that morning
calling the worshippers to early mass in the churches at Ypres. The
civil population had fled. If there were bells ringing their notes
were drowned by the fierce explosives that were following each other
through the crooked streets in rapid succession. When old Vauban
fashioned the moats and ramparts he never imagined they would be
bombarded with seventeen inch shells from guns that had a range of
twenty-four miles.

I was up by four o'clock. Major Marshall snatched a hasty breakfast
and started so as to be in the trenches when the men "stood to." Coe,
my signallers, and runners, all that were left of them, tried to get
some breakfast when we were interrupted by the "coal boxes" just
referred to. We persisted, however, and finally got the tea. Then we
sallied out to see if any of our strays or wounded had reached Ypres.

We found that our transports and quartermaster stores had been pretty
badly smashed up, and that what was left of them had been moved back
about a quarter of a mile from the canal. It was absolutely necessary
that they should refit at once and get rations down to us that night,
so we went up to the stone bridge on the canal which we had crossed so
gaily a few days before with ribbons and tartans flying.

From a couple of sentries that had been left at the lock by their
regiments when they marched into action, we were informed that a few
of our men who were slightly "gassed" had gone back to the transports.
I made my way back, leaving the guard on the bridge. At the transport
headquarters I found some thirty-five men who had been partially
gassed. They were sent back to the headquarters trenches.

I learned that