Many men were caught in their shelters and gassed before they could be alarmed. Others were caught on their way back from the line and suffered terribly. A Company just managed to get the one word “gas” over the ’phone before the line to Battalion H.Q. broke. But soon gongs and horns were crashing out their warning, while men frenziedly adjusted their helmets, seized their arms, and rushed to their battle positions. There was hurry and confusion almost everywhere, but panic nowhere. Indeed, that day there was not a single case of straggling in the 49th Division. Fortunately, the British artillerymen were thoroughly on the alert. They were standing to their guns ready for the pre-arranged shoot and, probably for the first time in their experience, they had more shells than they could fire. They saw the S.O.S., they heard the alarms, and soon they themselves were surrounded by the gas. With helmets on they worked their guns as they had never had the chance of working them before. The storm of projectiles which descended on the German lines must have taught the enemy that his age of artillery predominance was near its end. Warning had been sent to the 6th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, which was in Brigade Reserve, and before long it appeared, moving up across the open. The enemy saw it too and put down a barrage in its way. But the men came forward splendidly and were soon manning their battle stations on the west bank of the canal. Meanwhile, the Battalion was bearing the full force both of the gas and of the enemy bombardment. The men who had been warned in time were unharmed by the gas, for the P.H. helmet proved a very effective protection. But many men had been gassed before they could do anything, and among them the sights were ghastly. They lay in agony on the ground, sickly greenish-white in colour; they foamed at the mouth and gasped for breath; some even tore open their own throats in the paroxysms of their pain. None who saw these sights can ever forget them, and none will ever forgive the enemy who first made use of such fiendish means of destruction. Among them moved Capt. S. S. Greaves, the Battalion Medical Officer; none worked more devotedly that day than he, and many a man owed his life to him.