After receiving directions from the battery quartermaster-sergeant, we made our way up the road to a moat farm, the road being screened by a wood, the interior of which was a mass of earthworks and fortifications. Desperate hand-to-hand fighting had taken place here; now, all was peaceful and quiet. Hundreds of crosses were dotted about the fringe of the wood, and the bodies of some of those who had fallen during the night before were being placed in their last resting-places. The road was lined on either side with tall trees, now clothed in young foliage, silhouetted against rugged timber which would never see the green on it again. A nightingale, oblivious of what was going on underneath, was singing as I walked down the road, in close proximity to the line. Having a few minutes to spare, I took a turning to my left, when a voice from behind a hedge demanded, "Where are you going?" "Just having a look round," I answered. "Well, I should come down if I was you." The voice came from the communication trench, and I about-turned, following the further advice of the man who had just come out. The battery wagon lines were shelled that night and the camp had to be shifted, which was scarcely to be wondered at, for the field in which it was pitched, whilst we were dumping the rations in it earlier in the day, was under shell fire; several, screaming over us, had burst within a matter of a few yards from our dumping-ground. The battery being on the move, we took up a fresh position, this time at a little place near Béthune. I had a bed for the first time for many months, but was unable to sleep, owing, I suppose, to the sudden change from the hard floor-boards of the lorry to the softness of a box-spring mattress. Early the following morning shells were bursting in the town, and the _strafe_ continued for about half an hour. Once again it was the unhappy inhabitants who suffered. Two women and a child were killed.