As we came into Ypres, a military policeman on duty told me it was unhealthy to go the usual way through the Market Square, because the shelling was bad in that part of the town, so I spread the machines out and started on down a side street. We were getting on finely and I was congratulating myself on getting through, when two houses, hit from the back, collapsed across the street in front of my machine. Without any ceremony I turned my machine back along the street which we had come and went through the Market Square down the Lille road, under the gate, being followed by my section. About four hundred yards down I stopped; holding my solo motor cycle between my legs, standing up, I looked back. I counted my machines as they came up. If it hadn’t been so scary, it really would have been funny, to see these machines coming down the road through shell holes and over piles of bricks, as fast as the drivers could make them go. The men were hanging on for dear life and the machines rocked from side to side, but they were all there. Down the road we went to the houses; there we parked the machines and unpacked. A guard was placed over them and the rest of us marched down to the trenches. ------------------------------------- An officer has to buy all his own equipment and is allowed two hundred and fifty dollars by the Government towards the cost. An officer carries a revolver, but all junior officers as soon as possible acquire a rifle. The men of a “salvage company” were collecting all the rifles, bayonets, and parts of equipment near where I was to-day and I managed to get a Lee-Enfield (British rifle) in good shape. I felt that I would like to have a rifle and bayonet handy. I found a good-looking bayonet sticking in the side of a sandbag wall. It looked lonely. The scabbard I am using was resting in a loft of a deserted brewery. I am now complete with rifle, bayonet, and scabbard. [Illustration] "Wipers" Sometimes you see a man smashed about in a terrible way, such a mess that you think he is a goner; he may recover. Another man may have just a small wound and will die. A bullet hitting a man in the head will smash it as effectually as a sledge-hammer. Once a man leaves your unit, wounded, you don’t see him again. You get a fresh draft. No one thinks of peace here. Germany must be put in a similar state to Belgium first. We never travel anywhere without our smoke helmets; they come right over our heads and are tucked into our shirts; they have two glass eye-pieces. When we have them on we look like the old Spanish gentleman who ran the “Star Chamber.” Helmets must always be ready to put on instantly. Gas is a matter of seconds in coming over. The helmets are better than respirators, but have to be constantly inspected. A small hole, or if one is allowed to dry, means a casualty.