At last the sun rose and with it came a beautiful morning, warm and sunny. I walked out amongst the ruins to see the extent of the damage caused by the shelling of the previous day. I was waiting for the stew which was cooking on a little fire near the side of the cellar. The “dixie” was resting on two old bayonets, and they in turn rested on bricks at either side. Towards noon a big shell came over and landed in the moat, covering everything around with a coat of evil-smelling, black mud. This shell was followed by another, arriving in the part of the ruins where once a cow-shed stood. I was talking to Hawkins, my batman, when I saw him dive across my front and fall flat on his face. At the same time I was in the center of an explosion, a great flame of light and then bricks, wood and cement flew in all directions. For a few seconds I thought I was dead, then I picked myself up and saw that blood was pouring down the front of my jacket. I followed up the stream and found that my right hand was smashed and hanging limp. My men rushed out and I told them it was nothing, but promptly fell in a heap. When I came to, my hand was wrapped up in an emergency bandage, and a stretcher was coming down from Bedford House, an advanced dressing-station, the next house back. To the delight of the men who were carrying it, I waved them away and told them I could walk. Assisted up to the dressing-station by one of my men, I made it. I then made a discovery. A soldier is a man until he’s hit, then he’s a case. I first had an injection of “anti-tetanus” in the side, and the fact was recorded on a label tied to my left-hand top pocket button. The doctor tied me up, then said: “You’ll soon be all right. Will you have a bottle of English beer or a drop of whiskey?” I had the whiskey. I needed it. All the time I was there the wounded poured in. Seeing them I felt ashamed to be there with only a smashed hand. A corporal came in with both hands blown off and fifty-six other wounds. He had tried to save the men in his bay by throwing back a German bomb and it had gone off in his hands. Hawkins came up later on with my helmet and the fuse head of the shell which blew me up. We were all collected together and waited in the dugouts of the dressing station until dusk. Several shells came close to us. I tried to write to my mother with my left hand, so that when she received the War Office cable she would know I was able to write.