I shot into the room, which was stifling with fumes and dense yellow gas and smoke. The lamp went out. I told Square-Peg to fetch a doctor and tried to strike a light, but nothing would burn in the thick fumes. I felt for the ruined bed and managed to get him out of the room into the mess. There was a nasty deep gash over the tendon of Achilles, but no bones were broken, although the ligaments were gone and it was bleeding freely, so I applied a first field dressing, as I had so often done in France, and assured him it was not at all serious and that now he was sure to get downstream. Nevertheless poor Cockie's many nerves had been badly shaken. Fritz came and said: "Let me see. That's good--no bones. Bleeding stopped. Move your foot. Nothing much really. Where else?" After a fresh spasm Cockie complained that his back seemed cut in two, and this proved a nasty bruise, although the skin wasn't gone. It was a black bruise, and he must have got a pretty hefty knock from a piece of the bed. How he escaped goodness knows. The room was two feet deep in rubbish--topees, uniforms, cameras, bed, everything was wrecked. We got him to the hospital, and on the way he invented extraordinary futures for each of the stretcher bearers. Arrived at the hospital I am afraid the whole place was awakened, and some poor fellows whose dying was only a matter of hours or days turned from their fitful sleep on the ground floor to ask who was hit. He wanted me to sit up with him, but General Smith insisted that I went back to bed, assuring me I was far too ill, and he kindly gave me an excellent cigarette. Cockie is intrepid under fire even to the point of recklessness, but is also of the kind that feels pain tremendously. It is, I suppose, a matter of temperament and nerves. This has released me from the river-front and I succeed to the command of the ammunition column, and am now running our mess. Tudway, Square-Peg, and I are now alone here. We have a little potato meal and rice, and I have procured a tin of jam. I could not have two more generous companions with whom to share our last food. _March 23rd._--The servants won't sleep in that part of the building where the shells came, so we have vacated a room for them, and Square-Peg and I have moved below into the basement. I saw Cockie this morning and heard him from afar. Near him is an officer lying very still and white and quiet with his whole leg shattered, silent with the paralysis of extreme pain. I assisted Cockie with letters and other things, and got away as quickly as I could, as I felt this other sufferer wanted silence. _March 24th._--Some shells fell in the town during the night, and once again the horses got it badly. The 4·7-inch gun which was bombed by the plane is now under-water, as the river has risen five feet, the highest level during the siege.