German prisoners we saw daily brought in. Yellow-faced as Chinese, due to lyddite or high explosive shells and gas fumes, which had changed the colour of everything. Big men, many of them, of fine physique; others spectacled, or puny little baby-faced boys, all bearing the same dazed expression of men who have been through "Hell’s gates." This phrase I borrow from one who was in the first gas attack at Ypres. He was resting on account of broken nerve when I met him, having carried out no less than eighteen of his comrades, some never to recover, who had lain down oblivious of the gas being heavier than air, the communication trenches being choked with men who had dropped from the suffocating fumes. How many cases of "unconspicuous" and unnoticed gallantry occur almost hourly! On April 24, 1915, we left this part of the line with many regrets. The forest of Nieppe is one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen; thickly timbered and with innumerable ponds and lakes in its interior was an easy matter to lose one’s way, unless one kept to the paths. The length and breadth of the forest are twenty-six and five kilometres respectively. My temporary home was built by bending and crossing branches of nut-trees, the young foliage forming a roof or covering. Some fellows erected most elaborate bivouacs, approached by a pergola of nut-trees. Beside a railway level crossing near by was the grave of a Private, who was shot dead by a French sentry, through failing to reply to his challenge. This was in the days when parties of Uhlans were still in the locality. Nightingales sang at night overhead and frogs croaked on the ground as an accompaniment, the concert being at times interrupted by the bombardment of the guns, which resounded through the forest. The earth shook and the din reminded one of a number of traction engines travelling over sets, only louder; the sky was lit up by the gun flashes, intermingled with star shells. The batteries around were all in action from Fleurbaix to south of Béthune. This necessitated our moving about a great deal. On one occasion we left —— at 2.45 a.m. Taking the road to Béthune, which town was then under shell fire—several French soldiers and civilians were killed there during this particular night—from there we went on through Hinges, passing across former German trenches and over the La Bassée Canal. There were many graves of soldiers dotted about in the fields; one we passed by the roadside had received special attention, having been planted with rose-trees and evergreens.