[Illustration: WITH MY AEROSCOPE CAMERA AFTER FILMING THE BATTLE OF ST. ELOI] Shouldering my camera I led the way, followed by the men at a distance of twenty yards. Several times on the journey shrapnel balls and splinters buried themselves in the mud close by. When I reached the firing trench all our men were standing to arms, with grim faces, awaiting their orders. I fixed up the tripod so that the top of it came level with our parapet, and fastened the camera upon it. It topped the parapet of our firing trench (the Germans only forty-five yards away), and to break the alignment I placed sandbags on either side of it. In this position I stood on my camera case, and started to film the Battle of St. Eloi. Our shells were dropping in all directions, smashing the German parapets to pulp and blowing their dug-outs sky-high. The explosions looked gorgeous against the ever-increasing light in the sky. Looking through my view-finder, I revolved first on one section then on the other; from a close view of 6-inch shells and "Minnies" bursting to the more distant view of our 9.2. Then looking right down the line, I filmed the clouds of smoke drifting from the heavy (woolly bears) or high shrapnel, then back again. Shells--shells--shells--bursting masses of molten metal, every explosion momentarily shaking the earth. The Germans suddenly started throwing "Minnies" over, so revolving my camera, I filmed them bursting over our men. The casualties were very slight. For fully an hour I stood there filming this wonderful scene, and throughout all the inferno, neither I nor my machine was touched. A fragment of shrapnel touched my tripod, taking a small piece out of the leg. That was all! Shortly after seven o'clock the attack subsided, and as my film had all been used up, I packed and returned to my shelter. What a "scoop" this was. It was the first film that had actually been taken of a British attack. What a record. The thing itself had passed. It had gone; yet I had recorded it in my little 7- by 6-inch box, and when this terrible devastating war was over, and men had returned once again to their homes, business men to their offices, ploughmen to their ploughs, they would be able to congregate in a room and view all over again the fearful shells bursting, killing and maiming on that winter's morning of March 27th, 1916. CHAPTER VIII A NIGHT ATTACK--AND A NARROW ESCAPE A Very Lively Experience--Choosing a Position for the Camera Under Fire--I Get a Taste of Gas--Witness a Night Attack by the Germans--Surprise an Officer by My Appearance in the Trenches--And Have One of the Narrowest Escapes--But Fortunately Get Out with Nothing Worse than a Couple of Bullets Through My Cap.