Boxing Day! But nothing out of the ordinary happened. I filmed the Royal Welsh Fusiliers en route for the trenches. As usual, the weather was impossible, and the troops came up in motor-buses. At the sound of a whistle, they formed up in line and stopped, and the men scrambled out and stood to attention by the roadside. They were going to the front line. They gave me a parting cheer, and a smile that they knew would be seen by the people in England--perchance by their own parents. I went along the famous La Bassée Road--the most fiercely contested stretch in that part of the country. It was literally lined with shell-destroyed houses, large and small; châteaux and hovels. All had been levelled to the ground by the Huns. I filmed various scenes of the Coldstreams, the Irish and the Grenadier Guards. At the furthermost point of the road to which cars are allowed shells started to fall rather heavily, so, not wishing to argue the point with them, I took cover. When the "strafing" ceased I filmed other interesting scenes, and then returned to my headquarters. The next day was very interesting, and rather exciting. I was to go to the front trenches and get some scenes of the men at work under actual conditions. Proceeding by the Road, I reached the Croix Rouge crossing, which was heavily "strafed" the previous day. Hiding the car under cover of a partly demolished house, and strapping the camera on my back, my orderly carrying the tripod, I started out to walk the remaining distance. I had not gone far when a sentry advised me not to proceed further on the road, but to take to the trench lining it, as the thoroughfare from this point was in full view of the German artillery observers. Not wishing to be shelled unnecessarily, I did as he suggested. "And don't forget to keep your head down, sir," was his last remark. So bending nearly double, I proceeded. As a further precaution, I kept my man behind me at a distance of about twenty yards. Several times high explosives and shrapnel came unpleasantly near. Presently I came upon a wooden tramway running at right angles to the road. My instructions were to proceed along it until I came to "Signpost Lane." Why it was so dubbed I was unable to discover, but one thing I was certainly not kept in ignorance of for long, and that was that it was perpetually under heavy shell-fire by the Germans. They were evidently under the impression that it was the route taken by our relief parties going to the trenches at appointed times during the day, and so they fairly raked it with shell-fire.