Besides this, Vermelles was much used by troops in reserve and was full of cellars and dugouts occupied by the waiting infantry and also by signallers, headquarters of various kinds, and so on. The vapours--and some of the shells themselves, for that matter--got down into these cellars and made them almost uninhabitable for days, except in those cases where they had been properly protected by double lines of blankets hung at the entrances. About the same time in 1916 the enemy began making surprise bombardments with a new lachrymator and with the K-Shell mentioned previously, for the purpose of assisting in raids. Both of these gases rejoice in long names, the lachrymator being bromethylmethylketone, and the K-Shell gas monochlormethylchloroformate. These gases are much more poisonous and do not hang about as long as the old “T” tear gas. One such raid in which they were used was carried out at a place called La Boiselle--afterward famous as a jumping-off point in the Somme Battle. I was not in at the raid, but heard details of it afterward. The boche rained his gas shells into the selected area and at the same time prevented reinforcements from getting up by putting down a so-called box barrage with explosive shells round the trenches to be attacked. Our men were taken completely by surprise. Many of them were badly gassed, all were temporarily blinded; and then after a short interval the boche came in. He timed his arrival so that most of the gas had disappeared. Then there was some very fierce fighting--so fierce that a number of our men died afterward because of the exertion following on the breathing of the K-gas. But gassed and blinded men, however brave, cannot fight successfully against others fresh and unaffected, and the enemy captured a number of prisoners and two Lewis guns. Curiously enough, during the Somme Battle a few months later we did in properly the regiment which had carried out the raid and captured the official report of the commander of the raiding party. In this report he said: “... the men of the Royal Irish Rifles created a fine impression both as regards their physique and their mode of repelling an assault. Had it not been for the use of the gas shells it would have been impossible to clear the section of trench attacked.” Rather a fine tribute--and one thoroughly deserved! Of course surprises of this kind cannot be pulled off twice, but occurrences like this and the bombardment at Vermelles let us see that the enemy intended to develop his gas-shell industry much more than we had anticipated, and our protective measures were taken in hand so as to meet future eventualities. In fact it was about this time that the box respirator was being hurriedly developed so as to protect us against any further devilment that Fritz might send along. CHAPTER V