throw over sudden bursts of 77's to catch us off our guard. Their favorite method of annoyance was to mix in a lot of diphosgene gas with the H.E.'s. Every night at one or two A. M. great concentrations of gas would come over to the accompaniment of alarm gongs and klaxons along the whole front. At this stage of the game the Division had not become sufficiently well introduced to gas to know that shell- gas, especially, was very local in its effect, and that just because a gas shell burst in one place, a place

50 yards away would not necessarily be affected unless the wind were blowing in that direction. At first a gas alarm would be taken up and spread for miles by klaxon horns. Everybody would put on his mask and wait until the word was passed to take it off. Later on, when the men became "acclimated" to gas, no one worried about distant alarms.

In spite of the continual Boche concentrations, not a man was hit or gassed. Many were the hair breadth escapes, especially in going to the kitchen, but luck was always with us. We did only a little firing, and the cannoneers had a much needed opportunity to clean up and rest. The telephone detail, however, had to work overtime. They had nine or ten lines to keep in operation, most of which were being cut every day or so by the Boche shells. There was one line, especially, running out to the front lines in Marvoisin which the Boche always cut. With about twenty other Infantry lines it ran down through the communicating trench. All the Boche had to do, there­ fore, was to drop a shell in the trench and all the wires would be "out."

CONTENTS
INDEX