I and another Kensington had been allotted a firing position, and we were doing our best with our rifles when I suddenly became aware that my companion had come to grief. I looked round and saw that he was lying at the bottom of the trench--and I made the terrible discovery that his head had been blown completely off. I would not mention this circumstance except by way of trying to show what the whole of the trench warfare meant. This incident occurred in the open trenches; but a lot of the dug-outs were blown in with the men inside, which meant burial alive, and I know of one case in which seven men, so killed, were lying together, and that is only one instance of many of the same sort in this tremendous war. When we got into the trenches that had been occupied by the two Line regiments we were ordered to take up a firing position, and the first thing we did was to try and restore the parapet and to make the trench serviceable, in case the Linesmen were driven back. At this particular time everything gave way to the chief business in hand, which was to fight, and only the stretcher-bearers were allowed to do anything for the men who fell. Here, again, every other man carried a spade, and those who had them had to set to work at once to put the trenches to rights again, as far as it was possible to do so. This work was being done very vigorously when it had to be dropped suddenly, because the order came that we were to advance right up into the village of Neuve Chapelle; and so it happened that we were rushed up just behind the spot where the Regulars had dug themselves in. We rushed up into the village and lay in the open, behind some ruined buildings. The Germans had arranged a counter attack, and if this had come to anything we should have made a dash for the trenches, which were just in front of the village; but as it was we made for the village itself, or what was left of the place, for by this time there was nothing left but the ruins, and the whole region was an absolute shambles. Before we made this rush the men of the Line regiments began to bring in German prisoners. These came in batches of fifteen or twenty, disarmed, of course, so that one or two British soldiers were enough for a batch. These prisoners looked as if they had had a terrible time, and, indeed, they said they had been through some dreadful experiences owing to our artillery, and that our guns had given them a shell for each yard of ground they held.