I had been counting the supply of bombs in the Company grenade store, and was in the act of setting my watch by Taffy's, standing there in the trench at a quarter to five, when, with a roar, shells landed in six different parts of our line; not in the trench, you know, but somewhere mighty close handy. Of course, you might say there was nothing very startling about half a dozen shells landing near us, especially as nobody was hit. And that's true. But there was something queer about it, all the same. We both felt it. Taffy looked at me, and I looked at him, and "Oho!" said Taffy. And I entirely agreed. Perhaps it was partly the unusual quietness that had come before. Anyhow, we both started at the double for Company Headquarters, and I know we both had the same idea--to see whether "the Peacemaker" wanted the word passed for everyone to take cover in such artillery shelters as we have now in this sector; and, mind you, they're miles better than they were when we first took over. But, bless your heart! we needn't have bothered getting word about it from the O.C. Before we got near the Company dug-out the men were seeing to that for themselves, as they have been taught to do, and the trenches were empty except, of course, for the sentries and their reliefs, who, with the observation officer, would remain at their posts even if the bottom fell out of the world. Such a raging frenzy of fire as there was when we met "the Peacemaker," outside the signallers' cabin, you never could imagine in your life, not if I wrote about it all night. One knows now that, on the average, there were not more than ninety projectiles per minute coming over us. But at the time, I assure you, it seemed there must be about ten a second, and that shells must be literally jostling each other in the air. Apart from anything else, the air was full of falling earth, wood, and barbed wire. It was clear they had begun by ranging on our parapet and entanglements. The oddest things were falling apparently from the sky--bits of trench boots, bully beef tins, shovel handles, stakes six feet long, lengths of wire, crumpled sheets of iron, and all kinds of stuff. I yelled to the O.C. that I would take observation duty, and Taffy wanted to take it with me. But "the Peacemaker" very properly insisted on his going to ground. We had to shout right in each other's ears. The O.C. told me our telephone wires were cut to ribbons already. "But Headquarters will know as much about this as we could tell 'em by now," he yelled. But he had sent off a chit by runner, just to let the C.O. know that our fellows had all taken cover, and that the heavy stuff seemed to be mostly landing on our front and the communication trenches immediately in rear. The O.C. made a cup of his hands and shouted in my ear as we crouched in the bottom of the trench: