While I was at the front I had opportunity to observe three distinct types of barrage fire, the “box,” the “jumping,” and the “creeping.” The “box,” I have already described to you, as it is used in a raid. The “jumping” plays on a certain line for a certain interval and then jumps to another line. The officers in command of the advance know the intervals of time and space and keep their lines close up to the barrage, moving with it on the very second. The “creeping” barrage opens on a certain line and then creeps ahead at a certain fixed rate of speed, covering every inch of the ground to be taken. The men of the advance simply walk with it, keeping within about thirty yards of the line on which the shells are falling. Eight-inch shrapnel, and high-explosive shells were used exclusively by the British when I was with them in maintaining barrage fire. The French used their “seventy-fives,” which are approximately of eight-inch calibre. Of late, I believe, the British and French have both added gas shells for this use, when conditions make it possible. The Germans, in establishing a barrage, used their “whiz-bangs,” slightly larger shells than ours, but they never seemed to have quite the same skill and certitude in barrage bombardment that our artillery-men had. To attempt to picture the scene of two barrage fires, crossing, is quite beyond me. You see two walls of flame in front of you, one where your own barrage is playing, and one where the enemy guns are firing, and you see two more walls of flame behind you, one where the enemy barrage is playing, and one where your own guns are firing. And amid it all you are deafened by titanic explosions which have merged into one roar of thunderous sound, while acrid fumes choke and blind you. To use a fitting, if not original phrase, it’s just “Hell with the lid off.” That day on the Somme, our artillery had given the Germans such a battering and the curtain fire which our guns dropped just thirty to forty yards ahead of us was so powerful that we lost comparatively few men going over--only those who were knocked down by shells which the Germans landed among us through our barrage. They never caught us with their machine guns sweeping until we neared their trenches. Then a good many of our men began to drop, but we were in their front trench before they could cut us up anywhere near completely. Going over, I was struck by shell fragments on the hand and leg, but the wounds were not severe enough to stop me. In fact, I did not know that I had been wounded until I felt blood running into my shoe. Then I discovered the cut in my leg, but saw that it was quite shallow, and that no artery of importance had been damaged. So I went on.