When I reached the barn I wanted to get back to the battery, to be at my own gun again, to bear a hand once more in the fighting that was still going on and seemed as if it would never stop; but when I tried to stand up I collapsed, through pain and loss of blood. Soon after this I heard that Charlie Harrison too had been wounded. He was struck on the neck just after I was carried away from the gun pit and had shouted good-bye to him; but he bandaged himself and refused to leave the battery. What became of him? Why, he got home from the front a day or two ago, and you’ve just seen him. There he is. And let me show you this shattered foot, to let you see how it is that I’m forced to hop when I want to get about. And now to get back to the air raid on the East Coast, which to me and other soldiers from the front who saw it, was an extraordinary experience, though I fancy that we took it more or less as a matter of course, because you so soon get used to that kind of thing. I had scarcely settled down at home when one night there was a fearful commotion, caused by dull explosions. I was a bit taken aback, for I knew what the sounds meant, and thought that I had done with the Germans and fighting for a spell at any rate. As soon as the sound of the explosions was heard, people rushed into the streets--the most dangerous thing they could do--to see what it all meant, and there were cries that the Germans had come. So they had. They had come in a gas-bag or two, and were dropping bombs on the good old town, which was lighted as usual, though that was soon altered. I hopped into the street--hopping is the only thing I can do at present--and there I found that there was intense excitement and that women in particular were badly scared. But really the thing did not upset me at all--it was mere child’s play compared with what I had been through, so I made myself useful, and hopped away and bought some brandy, which suited some of the scared people very well--so well that there wasn’t a drop left for myself. The raid was soon over, and so was the scare, and I hopped back to the house. There have been several frantic alarms since then, and more than once I have been shaken out of my sleep and told that the Germans have come again; but all I have said has been that it will take something far worse than a German gas-bag raid to make me turn out of bed in the middle of the night. CHAPTER XIX WITH THE “FIGHTING FIFTH” [One of the battalions which composed the 5th Division of the British Expeditionary Force was the 1st East Surrey Regiment. It was on the 5th Division that so much of the heavy fighting fell on the way to the Aisne, and in that heavy fighting the East Surreys suffered very severely. This story is told by Private W. G. Long, who rejoined his regiment from the Reserve. He has been wounded by shrapnel, and has permanently lost the use of his right arm.]