About 3 a.m. "B" Company began to thread its way down Buterne Avenue towards the town. They were caught by a heavy bombardment in the Houplines road, and had to take temporary shelter in odd cellars. "C" Company and Battalion Headquarters followed, but escaped with nothing worse than casual shelling. "A" and "D" Companies remained in the subsidiary line, and very glad they were to do so. Our arrival in the area of our billets was anything but cheerful. A large part of the Rue de Lille, including the Quartermaster's Stores, was in flames. The house next to Battalion Headquarters was practically gutted, and both the company billets were blazing merrily. The streets were littered with gas shells and the grey powder which they had scattered. The houses also were full of gas, nor were any of the gas-proof cellars better off. The first casualties were being loaded up into the ambulances, the men gasping, vomiting, choking, and with bloodshot, streaming eyes. Lieutenant Wyatt, who gallantly carried a wounded man across Armentières through the bombardment, was especially bad; and Quartermaster-Sergeant Jackson, who had been found wounded and unconscious in the street, was little better. Most of our advance party were in various stages of collapse, and the road to the advanced dressing station was already marked by a small stream of casualties. The civilians were in a terrible state. Gas protection for them consisted merely of one or two "P.H." helmets per family, and many of the poor creatures were now in agony from the gas poisoning. Efforts to rouse the Town Major proved of little use, and a search was instituted to try and discover some part of the town where the gas was less pronounced. It need hardly be said that the Commanding Officer was tireless in his efforts to relieve the situation, and in company with Major H. K. Wilson searched the town from one end to the other. It was on occasions such as these that the ordinary man got a glimpse of what the Commanding Officer really was. After a prolonged search, the schools between St. Vaast Church and the Convent were found to be clear, and thither the remains of the battalion were removed. The men, utterly tired out, fell fast asleep, but only to wake up and find that they were blind. This was "mustard gas," till then unheard of by us; and processions of blind men, led by one who could still see, became more and more frequent. We did contrive to make some tea, but the rest of the food was splashed with gas and was unusable; otherwise there was little to be done. The shelling of the Place de la Republique now began from a heavy battery, and the shells came perilously near the open courtyard where we sat under the cloisters that surround it. A thunderstorm broke suddenly, and probably did more to clear away the gas than anything else could have done. That night and the whole of the next day the Germans shelled the town fiercely. Splendid work was