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trenches became a quagmire. We were up to our thighs in water each day; and at night, we slept in dug-outs on wire bunks, sometimes only a few inches above the water. Add rats and fleas to make the picture complete. Rheumatism and trench foot were causing more casualties than the enemy’s fire.
    I had my share of land mines, Big Berthas, Whizz Bangs, and Minnies, and saw men killed and wounded. I had an observation post razed to the ground while I sat in its sand-bag cellar for a couple of hours, wondering whether it would hold out against the ‘crumps’ that were being poured on it. In the front line, I spent a sleepless seventy-two hours as FOO cutting wire and directing an artillery barrage during a diversion we tried to create at the time of the Loos attack. But all this was tame to what the division had to go through on the Somme, and in many a subsequent battle later on, after I had left it. Actually, I saw more of death in the three weeks in the hospital at St Nazaire than I saw here during our whole nine months’ stay in the sector. Armentières remained to the end of the war the de luxe sector of the Western Front, a convenient terrain in which to give the new Kitchener divisions their first baptism of fire. If we could have relaxed, it would not have been so bad, but we were continually keyed up expecting something to happen which never did.
    Our only relief from this dull routine was our three days’ leave in England every three months. We also had good food: the army rations were excellent, and this was supplemented by hampers which we were permitted to order from Harrod’s. For water, we used Perrier, as the ordinary supply was bad, and the local beer was even worse. How the peasants of north-easternFrance could drink it, I never could fathom. I could get a little consolation out of letters. Most of my relatives were disappointed that I had abandoned a promising career for the service; they were too far away to realise that the best of England’s youth had joined up. My fiancée, cut off from me in Australia, wrote less and less, until finally we ceased to correspond. The end of the war seemed indefinitely postponed, and communication, because of censors and delays, became almost impossible. I seemed effectively cut off from the world.
    Just when we began to think that we never would be transferred, we got orders to move. All immediately was excitement and bustle. The usual rumours flew around as to our destination. We were even going to the Dardanelles, and then it was to Mespot. Imagine our dismay when we found ourselves relieving the Guards at Laventie, a sector at that time almost as quiet as the one at Armentières. But we were really on the move: we only stayed there for a couple of weeks. At the commencement of March 1916 we started south again: the concentration for the Somme offensive had begun.
    For the rest of my short stay on the Western Front, I was never again to complain of monotony. Events moved quickly. Before leaving Ewshot, I had been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant; I was now a captain. My battery commander had been placed on the sick list and was subsequently retired on account of advanced age; Captain Wells, who had succeeded him, had been wounded at Laventie; I now found myself in command of the battery.
    We covered miles in intermittent snow over muddy roads. The displacement of guns, ammunition wagons, horses, andmen over such a distance was an undertaking. We spent hours in the saddle each day, our hands and feet numb with the cold. It was ceaseless work, which called for endurance. At dusk, billets had to be found, and, when all the men and horses had been looked after, maps and orders had to be studied for the next day’s march. I enjoyed it; it was the only part of the war which recalled to me my boyhood memories and conception of war. We still had the mud, but I was in command of a fine group of men; I felt a good horse under me; we were on the move; we were going