Next day we were up before daylight and taking up position. We dug trenches, and were fired on before we had finished. We were at the back--a sort of last firing line. So we lay down in the trench, and waited. Shrapnel and lyddite were flying round us like hail, and our gunners were firing too. Such a noise! Just like thunder! Well, we stuck out as long as we could when we got the order to retire. However I came safely away goodness knows. I picked up my gun and ran up the hill and dropped on one side of the road to rest. Then I had to get across the road, so got up and was half-way across when a shell burst and knocked me flat on my face. It must have fused at the wrong time, as I got only a cut on my thumb from a fragment. Then I got across and dropped in a trench where a fellow was lying dead. I stayed there only a minute, and then ran off over the hill and safe. The bullets were flying in all directions and shells were bursting four at a time. South Africa was nothing compared to this. I had had no sleep for nights, so decided to go back to a little village we had just passed, where I sat on a doorstep till I fell asleep, and woke up one hour later wet through and chilled to the bone. It was still dark when I got back to where I left our regiment, and they were off. So I trekked away alone, and got on the wrong road. About nine in the morning I came across some transport, and rode along with stragglers of other regiments to a camp. There were about sixty of us, and we went to a large camp, about 2,000 of us--all lost. There I came across Guy Jessop of Huddersfield, who was also lost, and was glad to meet a pal. We had a walk in the town together, and called in a café. We had some coffee and rum (Guy paid, as I had no money). I played the piano and sang “Mrs. Hullaby.” Lucky job they could not understand English, or they would have been shocked. * * * * * [Illustration: _Drawn by Christopher Clark. Copyright of The Sphere._ HOW THE ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY FIGHT.] _Letter 50.--From Private E. W. Dyas, of the 11th Hussars, to his parents at Mountain Ash:_