But alas! One Sunday afternoon a gas alarm was suddenly sounded. All the men along the trench began excitedly fumbling for their gas masks and shouting to one another. That was the very worst thing that they could do. Remaining cool and keeping your mouth shut is the only possible method of combating this awful weapon. You must lose no time in shaking off your metal trench helmet and getting the gas mask on and buttoned tightly around your neck, but the way to save time is to go about it cooly. Now "Frenchie" had become excited and couldn't find his mask. It wasn't in his bag provided for the purpose. He had lost it. In his excitement, instead of wetting his handkerchief and tying it over his nose as a temporary substitute, he began yelling at the other boys, asking them if they had seen it or if they had an extra one. In doing this he had taken in several breaths of the deadly fumes and was quickly overcome. He was carried back into the receiving station and there he lay in agony. When I got there two men were bending over him as he lay upon the stretcher and with a fan and oxygen tube, they were trying to assist him in getting air into his lungs. I went over and spoke to him, but his eyes were closed and he could not answer. For ten or fifteen minutes we worked with him, but it seemed like eternity. As his eyelids twitched, his throat contracted, and his nostrils distended in the awful effort to get air; I thought I should faint as I was forced to look upon his indescribable suffering. When once or twice I asked him something the agonizing efforts which he made to speak to me were terrible to behold. I would rather die myself than ever have to look on such a sight again. Death isn't hard to see and the sight of it becomes commonplace on the battle line. But the spectacle of a fellow-human going through the slow agonies of the damned, in his vain attempts to get air, is one which no mortal ought ever to be called upon to undergo. [Illustration: _Photo by International Film Service._ AMBULANCE MEN WORKING OVER A "GASSED" SOLDIER.] Of course I cannot know how much actual pain he felt, as it is possible that the gas deadened his nerves and yet caused him to twitch in this awful manner; but if poor "Frenchie" suffered any worse than I did in those few minutes, he is better off dead than living. Finally he turned a bluish green color and at last gave one great gulp and died. It was with heavy hearts that we carried him out and then I went back to the depot.