During the evening the firing became steady on both sides, the French battery pouring their shells, which whistled over our dugout. We went to bed, secure in this iron cylinder, whose great ribs stood like the fleshless carcass of a beast, which to destroy would be a worthless task. A stump of a candle lay wrapped in our blankets in the bunks. It was rather comfortable, except that my bed was crossed at the top by a piece of iron just where my head lay. All through the night there was a continuous commotion in the dugout, the _brancardiers_ running around and talking in loud voices about things we were too sleepy to understand. We had no _blessés_ during the night (an exceptional thing—this morning they had fifty from one post) and were relieved about half-past ten the next morning. I returned to the large town, where our cantonment had been changed to another quarter of the village. This is an exceptionally fine cantonment and was recently occupied by the British Ambulance, whose place we have taken. I think it was originally an officers’ barracks. Two low cement buildings, faced with red brick and roofed with red tile, stand on one side, and opposite these are the stables, used by the “Genies.” In front of the houses are some trees and grass. Each house (one story in height) is divided into four parts, accessible by four doors. Jim, Rogers, and I have one room to ourselves off the third hallway and in front. There are three other rooms accessible by the same hallway. It is almost like a separate house, as each division has its flight of steps before the door and there is a main sidewalk running under all the front windows. We have our three stretchers on the floor, two cupboards, a broken mirror, and two camp-stools. We keep our trunks, etc., right in the room and it saves transferring them every trip to the posts. There is a large French window with blue shutters. We certainly are comfortably located. There are no showers after all (we had expected two), except one that is broken, and we wash from our _bidons_ (canteens) with a sponge, which is almost as good. Jim and Rogers came back yesterday shortly before I did. They had both been to the same post, the second one, and been caught in a gas-attack which lasted for an hour. They sat in the _abri_ with their masks on (the masks are a greenish color, with two big round windows for the eyes) and, of course, with the helmets, the _abri_ was crowded, and from their description they must have looked like so many big beetles crouching together. There is absolutely no danger with the masks, however, and we carry one always with us (even in town) and one fastened in the car. Last evening we went out into a field and read Jane Austen’s “Emma” out loud. Jim and Rog left this morning for the posts and I go tomorrow. Of the routine work of the ambulance driver he writes: