The Germans opened the ball by letting our support and reserve lines have a heavy bombardment of tear shells. Almost immediately after, in the dim light of the early dawn, the first gas cloud floated over. It was very thick and had been largely mixed with smoke in the hope of leading our fellows to believe that it was terribly strong. It was not. But the cloud was so dense that even at brigade headquarters, three miles behind the front line, it was impossible to see across the road. There was enough gas in this mixed cloud to make it very dangerous and uncomfortable to unprotected men, but there were very few casualties. The alarm was quickly spread, the men remained cool, and an attempted attack by the enemy infantry to follow up the cloud was smashed up without being able to get closer than our barbed wire. After this first wave there was a tendency among the men to regard the danger as over and to congratulate themselves on the apparent and obvious boche failure. As they were prepared to go through with anything the boche could put over, there was a natural tendency to underrate the effects of gas, seeing it had caused them no losses. It is undoubtedly true that a number of helmets were discarded entirely--some of the soldiers thought they were useless after being through an attack, and threw them away, depending entirely on their reserve helmets. These they omitted to place in the “Alert” position, pinned up on their chests ready for immediate use. In one or two cases which came to my notice officers and men went off to the latrines or to headquarters without helmets at all. This of course, was not general, but it shows how some of our men fell for the boche ruse, which consisted of putting over a second wave two hours later on exactly the same Front. The second cloud was a frightfully strong one, composed entirely of gas in the highest possible concentration. It was this wave which caused all our losses on April twenty-seventh, as it took a number of men completely by surprise. But even so, the Irishmen were not a bit dismayed, and when the Germans again attempted to advance--parties of their bombers in some cases appearing immediately behind the gas cloud--they were met by such a stout resistance that those who were not shot down retired in disorder to their own trenches.