Irish), commanded by Colonel Heath, and
the 1/4th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, commanded by Colonel Hindle,
who, after winning the D.S.O. and Bar, was killed at the head of his
battalion at Heudecourt during the great Battle of Cambrai on November
30, 1917. When the necessity for "infiltration" brought about the
reduction of the strength of brigades from four battalions to three, the
Liverpool Irish were afterwards transferred to the 57th Division. But
throughout the whole of the period with which this narrative deals the
Liverpool Irish were still with us.

It is interesting to note the summary of the situation written by the
chronicler of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers in the 1917 _Lancashire
Fusiliers' Annual_:

"On May 26th, the Battalion moved back to the Prison. Lieutenant-Colonel
B. Best-Dunkley went on leave the same day, leaving Major Brighten in
command.

"Then began a very memorable 17 days--Ypres was shelled heavily every
day, particular attention being paid to the Prison.

"By night the Battalion was occupied in digging a new communication
trench, Pagoda Trench. The digging was finished in two nights, but there
was all the riveting to do as well. Every night the working parties have
to pass through a barrage. Our casualties during this period totalled 60
or 70. The _moral_ of the men was very high all the time. The continual
shelling, paradoxical as it must seem, hardened and prepared them as
much as anything for the great day which every one knew was not far off.

"We had our first serious gas attack on June 3rd. It was preceded by a
heavy bombardment of Ypres, after which some 25,000 gas shells were put
over, lasting from 10 p.m. to 4 p.m. We were fortunate in having very
few casualties."

That was the position of the Battalion when I set off to join it in the
Prison cells on the morning of June 5, 1917.

I rose at 10 a.m. It was a rowdy morning. The guns were still unusually
lively. While we were having breakfast shells were bursting three or
four hundred yards away from our hut, and we could hear occasional H.E.
dropping as far back as Poperinghe behind us.

The following letter which I wrote home from my cell (which I shared
with three other second-lieutenants, Gilbert Verity, Bernard Priestley
and H. A. Barker) in the Prison, dated June 6, 1917, describes my
journey to Ypres:

"At 11 a.m. I set off up the road with another officer to the city where
my unit is stationed. We got a lift i