esh adventure. For any boy who, like this boy,
craved for excitement, and, while hating war theoretically and disliking
it temperamentally, was not blind to the romance and grand drama of it
all, there was ample satisfaction in the Great War; and perhaps on no
other sector of the line did all the factors which are conducive to
excitement obtain as they did in the dead city of the Salient and the
shell-ploughed fields around it.

My diary of July 14 carries on as follows:

"Up about 2 a.m. Twenty-eight more men in B Company reported sick with
gas, but they were not sent to hospital. The M.O. said that they would
be excused duty to-night and must report sick to-morrow morning. We had
a little more gas in the afternoon. I think a German heavy exploded one
of our own gas dumps near the Canal Bank. A dense cloud of vapour rose
in that vicinity, and we felt the smell slowly drifting towards us in
the almost breathless calm of a bright summer afternoon. Giffin, who was
the senior officer present at the time, ordered respirators on. But it
did not last long, so we went on with our tea.

"In the evening Giffin and I were on a working party with Sergeant
Clews, Sergeant Dawson and forty-five other ranks. We proceeded to
Potijze Dump and drew tools; thence to Pagoda Trench and carried on with
the making of a new trench branching off that trench. All went well for
the first three quarters of an hour. Our guns were pounding the German
trenches the whole time--the first preliminaries in the bombardment
preceding our offensive. But the Germans do not always allow us to have
all our own way in these matters; they always retaliate. And, by Jove,
we did get some retaliation too! At 10.50 p.m. quite suddenly, a heavy
shell exploded just near us; and a regular strafe commenced. I was
standing near a shell-hole at the time, so I immediately crouched where
I was; the men digging at the trench at once took refuge in the trench.
In a few minutes I mustered sufficient courage to make a dash for the
trench. I got there just in time, for, soon afterwards, a shell burst
almost where I had been. They were dropping all round us, both in front
of and behind the trench. Only the trench could possibly have saved us.
And it was a marvel that no one was hurt as it was. I honestly expected
every moment to be my last; it was a miracle that none of our party were
hit. If we had remained out in the open I firmly believe that the whole
lot would have been k