We had a terrific bombardment last night; the ground shook all night and the sky was lit up for miles. The Boches used liquid fire on some new troops and we lost ground. I found this piece of poetry on the wall of a smashed-up chateau, and I have copied it exactly as I found it. The writing was on a darkened wall, and while I copied it my guide held a torchlight up to it. The place passes as “Dead Cow Farm” on all official maps. I’ve traveled many journeys in my one score years and ten,” And oft enjoyed the company of jovial fellow men, But of all the happy journeys none can compare to me With the Red-Cross special night express from the trenches to the sea. “It’s Bailleul, Boulogne, Blighty, that’s the burden of the song, Oh, speed the train along. If you’ve only half a stomach and you haven’t got a knee, You’ll choke your groans and try to shout the chorus after me. Bailleul, Boulogne, and Blighty, dear old Blighty “cross the sea.” “Now some of us are mighty bad and some are wounded slight, And some will see their threescore years and some won’t last the night, But the Red Cross train takes up the strain all in a minor key And sings Boulogne and Blighty as she rumbles to the sea. “Oh, it’s better than the trenches and it’s better than the rain, It’s better than the mud and stink; we’re going home again, Though most of us have left some of us on the wrong side of the sea. We are a lot of blooming cripples, but—downhearted? No, siree. “There’s a holy speed about this train for each of us can see That we will cross the shining channel that lies ’twixt her and me To the one and only Blighty, our Blighty, ’cross the sea,’ Where the blooming Huns can never come, ’twixt her and home and me.” “Blighty” is the wound which sends a man home to England; it’s a war word which came originally from the Indians, but now universally adopted in the new trench language. I was walking along a trench when a man, who was sitting on a firestep looking up into a little trench mirror (which is used by putting the end of the bayonet between the glass and the frame), just crumpled up, shot through the heart. He didn’t say a word. The trench had thinned out and the bullet had come through, nearly four feet down from the top of the parapet. Bad shell fire this afternoon. Saw shells churning things up seventy-five yards away; many passed overhead; had a ride on my motor cycle with the other officers to reconnoiter the roads leading down to the part of the trenches we have taken over; road was shelled as we came along. Two “coal boxes” hit the road and smashed up a cottage in front of us; we picked up pieces of the shell too hot to hold.