When you do drop asleep you awaken suddenly and think you are being fired at. Twice now while I have been in battle, the man on my right and on my left has been killed. The last one next to me to be killed was poor ----. He was asking me where the enemy was when he got shot in the arm. Then he got hit in the stomach, and afterwards, poor chap, in the chest. The man on my right got hit, and then it came my turn. It is strange that the same thing should occur twice running. God is guarding me all right: _Sergt. Greeley, South Lancashire Regiment_. A Scamper The whistle has just blown to get under cover as there is an aeroplane up. I have just spotted it. All the fellows are running for shelter so as not to be seen and give the position away. I am inside the car, a covered van body. The shells are beginning to drop very close, so we’ll have to make a shift for better cover: they are screaming and howling like some of those funny fireworks, but you cannot see them and don’t know where they are going to land any minute. Our guns are firing on the aeroplane, but I’m afraid he is too high for them to reach him: _Driver F. Clarkson, Artillery Transport Service_. Causes Deafness A bullet struck the kit of Corpl. Thompson, of the 3rd Worcesters, and lodged in his canteen. Thompson gave a grunt and thought he was done for, but when the bullet rattled inside the canteen he just laughed and blessed his luck. It’s a funny thing to go into battle for the first time. There we were in the trenches with rain falling heavily all the time, bullets whizzing all round us and shells--death-dealing things--dropping everywhere. The roar was deafening: in fact, I was deaf for a week afterwards, and I couldn’t tell what was shouted: _Private J. Sibley_. Twenty to One We had no cover, and simply walked into the German army, who were about twenty to one. We bayoneted and charged several times. They shouted for mercy. They can’t face steel. I think I was just mad, and the rest were, too, at seeing chums go under. You simply don’t think about yourself; all your thought is to get at them. I felt right proud to be a Britisher, especially a Cameron. If I do go under, it will be fighting with a rifle in my hand and like a Britisher; but, at the same time, a few Germans are already my victims: _A Private of the Cameron Highlanders_. Under Difficulties We got into a little hell yesterday and all last night--a proper warm corner. Shells bursting all over and round us and bullets whizzing about all over the place. I had to take one of our wagons right into the firing line. Our captain, who was riding ten yards in front, got blown off his horse. The battle is still raging now. Heaven only knows how it will end up. We cannot hear ourselves speak. My writing is very bad, but you must excuse it as the very ground is shaking. I have to take another wagon right into the firing line in ten minutes’ time: _A Corporal of the Royal Army Medical Corps_. Not Troubling