In such a serious business as this we had, of course, lost heavily, and we continued to lose. Major Buckle, D.S.O., one of the bravest men that ever stepped in a pair of shoes in the British Army, lost his life in attempting to distribute the West Kents. That is merely one of many instances of officers and men who were killed under fire. Sometimes men were lost in the most extraordinary manner, especially owing to shell fire. At one time about six big shells burst, and in the wreckage caused by one of the explosions ten men were buried. Men volunteered to go and try to dig these poor fellows out, but as fast as the volunteers got to work they, too, were shelled and buried, so that in the end about thirty men were buried--buried alive. It was useless to attempt to continue such a forlorn hope, and it was impossible to dig the men out, so they had to be left. It was hard to do this, but there was nothing else for it. Bodies of men were lost, too, as prisoners, when overpowering numbers of Germans had to be met, or when the Germans rushed unarmed men and left them no alternative to capture. A doctor and twenty-five men of the West Kents who were acting as stretcher-bearers were taken. Very splendid work is done by the stretcher-bearers, who go to the trenches every night to collect the wounded, and bring them in to the hospitals. All sorts of buildings and places are used as hospitals, and in this case it was the cellar of a house in a village that was utilised. The men were not armed, as they were acting as members of the Royal Army Medical Corps, to render first aid. Just about midnight the Germans broke through the line and surrounded the village, and rushed in and captured the stretcher-bearers, and took them off, no doubt thinking they had gallantly won a very fine prize. I remember this particular occasion well, because on the following morning we were reinforced by some of the native Bhopal Infantry, from India, and that took me back to the time I spent in that country. Little did I think in those days, when we were associated so much with the troops of the Indian Army, that the day would come when, in the heart of winter, we and the Indians would be fighting side by side in the awful Low Countries. I got used to the heat of the day and the cold of the night in India, but it wasn’t easy to become accustomed to the sweltering heat of the earlier days of the war, or the bitter cold of the winter.