He found most of the recruits were hopelessly slow in getting on their gas masks, and appeared to be in such a state of hebetude that they did not realize that gas was dangerous. They did preposterous things. They would, for instance, entirely abandon a Lewis Gun post to get their dinners. It was ten days before Winterbourne discovered this. The subalterns had seen it, of course, but had not known that they ought to report it. Winterbourne “ran” the responsible N.C.O. as an example. He “ran” a boy for sleeping on sentry duty, and then washed out the charge when he reflected that the poor wretch might be shot for so serious a military crime. His Front line positions were an exhausting nightmare, too. His front was over five hundred yards. He had an outpost line of four listening and observation posts with a section in each. Three hundred yards farther back he had his main defence line and his own headquarters. Behind that he had various isolated Lewis Gun positions. All these were imposed upon him in spite of his protests. The defence scheme might be all very well on paper, and might have worked out with experienced troops, but it was hopeless under these peculiar circumstances. He realized after a couple of nights in the Front line that under any determined attack it would be impossible for him to hold his positions for ten minutes. He urged this on the Colonel, begging that the dispositions might be temporarily revised and the men brought more closely together under his own eyes. He was told that he was incompetent and not fit to be a Lance-Corporal. Winterbourne sarcastically replied that some people are born Corporals and some are not. He offered to resign his command, and was ordered to continue it under threat of immediate arrest and court-martial for negligence and disobeying orders in the face of the enemy. Knowing how easily a court-martial can be “cooked,” Winterbourne unwillingly carried on. Most fortunately, he was not at first attacked, but he lost several men. Two were wounded on a ration party, having lost contact and wandered about half the night. One was shot through the neck by a fixed rifle, although Winterbourne had thrice ordered every N.C.O. to warn the men about it. At Stand-to one morning, the Germans bombarded them with mustard gas shells. Winterbourne had warned them of the gas until he was sick of doing so. Two mustard shells fell just outside the parapet of a fire-step with six men on it. They ducked down when the shells burst and then stood stupidly looking at the bright yellow shell-hole, wondering what the funny smell was. Three of them were gassed, and two died.