Fixing up the camera, I started to film the scenes from the assembly trenches to the old first line trench, and then into the stretch of ground known as "No Man's Land." Finishing this particular picture, we went along to the old German trenches, and during the whole time we bent nearly double, to keep under the line of the old parapets. In the old German trenches the frightful effect of modern shell-fire was only too apparent. The whole line, as far as one could see, was absolutely smashed to atoms. Only the bases of the parapets were left, and in the bottom of the trenches was an accumulation of water and filth. It was a disgusting sight. The whole place was littered with old German equipment, and whilst wading and splashing along through the water I saw such things, and such stenches assailed my nostrils, as I shall not easily forget. Dotted all over the place, half in and half out of the mud and water, were dead bodies. But why recount the horrors of the scene? Imagine the sights and the smell. How I got through that section of trench Heaven only knows. It was simply ghastly. To escape from the scene I hurried to the end of the trench and again crossed "No Man's Land." The sight here was not so bad as in the trenches. To obtain a good view of the spot I got up very gingerly on top of the parapet, fixed the machine, and filmed the scene. But this enterprise nearly put an end to my adventure, _and also to the other members of the party_. I had finished taking, and had got my camera down on the stand, in the bottom of the trench, and was on the point of unscrewing it, when two shells came hurtling overhead and exploded about forty feet away. The Major ran up to me and shouted that I had been seen, and told me to take cover at once. He and the others, suiting the action to the word, dived below the parapets. Snatching the camera off its stand, I followed, and paddled as close as possible to the mud. The shells began falling in quick succession. Nearer and nearer they came. Some just cleared the parapet top; some burst in front, some immediately behind. "They have got our line; let's shift along further," some one said. From one point of the trench to the other we dodged. The shells seemed to follow us wherever we went. Crash! One struck the crumbling parapet on the very spot where, a few seconds before, I had been sheltering. In the rush for cover I had lost the handle of the camera, and as it was the only one I had there, I began to work my way back to find it. "Don't be a fool," called the Major. "If you show yourself they'll have you, as sure as eggs are eggs." But my anxiety to obtain pictures of the bursting shells was too much for me. I set to to make a handle of wood. Looking round, I spotted an old tree-trunk, behind which I could take cover. Doubling towards it, I crouched down, and finding a piece of wood and an old nail I fashioned a handle of a sort.