I have one comment to make, however, on all these operations. The shortage of artillery ammunition was most apparent, and we received hardly any support from our artillery. The enemy’s shells burst in hundreds all round and among us, and we could barely reply. The gunners were wringing their hands, and watching the infantry being mowed down—infantry whom they were supposed to protect. The great agitation sprang up soon after in the Press, and many prominent men, including the Bishop of Pretoria, wrote very strongly from the Front. Whatever the causes, the fact remains that a great disaster nearly occurred through lack of shells, and that it was only the almost superhuman courage of the British infantry which saved Ypres, and did almost alone what should have been their joint work with the gunners. It was a case of human flesh and courage against German steel and preparedness. It was not till the great efforts made in England to rectify this succeeded that the warfare on the Western Front began to be waged on terms of more equality. On the arrival of the ambulance at Poperinghe I was, as I have already mentioned, placed inside the large church which adorns this town. It was packed with all sorts of wounded, including Indians. Belgian ladies kindly brought tea to the sufferers, and chaplains came and wrote out field postcards for the men. I was feeling fairly easy, and the tea much refreshed me. I heard a familiar voice near me, and it was Frankie Merivale, who had luckily received only a slight wound. I could not move round and so was unable to see him, but we conversed for a little. I directed some field postcards, the chaplain doing the writing of course. I cannot tell how long I stayed there, but I may have slept a night there. At any rate I remember being suddenly taken out of the church in broad daylight, and then, to my horror, found German shells bursting everywhere. I was left alone in the open for some minutes, and a shell burst within a few yards of me and shook me uncomfortably. At last, however, I was put into an ambulance, and taken to Hazebrouck, a town a few miles on the French side of the frontier.