We reorganized when we had reached the first defences. I don't know how many of the boys were flattened out against the ground behind us, but I do know that several companies had to be consolidated to make one. Then we swarmed over to the next defence line and stabbed and slashed and threw grenades. Parties of us ran to the bombproofs and threw in everything explosive that we had, and let me tell you that, all stories to the contrary notwithstanding, I never knew of anybody going down into a bombproof and being stabbed by Prussians who said they were wounded and needed help, because nobody ever goes into a bombproof to see until they have thrown grenades in and all is quiet. It would be foolish to do otherwise. As I have said before, it is a rotten war any way you look at it. IV--WHEN THE BOCHES THROW GAS BOMBS Well, after the attack we held the first two lines of trenches. When I went off duty after being on outpost I simply lay down in the mud and mess of things and slept. I waked up coughing and wracking as if my body were going to burst. The Boches had crept over and thrown gas bombs among us. Some of the men were too far gone to get out of it. Others had managed to get away. A few had gas masks, and one of these put his arms under my shoulders and dragged me with him to the rear. We all should have had our masks, and nowadays a soldier found without his is severely punished. I had mine then, but it was under my blanket and I couldn't get to it quickly enough. They stuffed something under my nose, and it hurt almost as much as the gas, but it brought me to, and I was put in an ambulance. The body of it was filled with wounded men, so I sat with my legs dangling over the tailboard, propped up against a leather strap. The poor fellows inside groaned and grunted with every bump of the crazy vehicle. The road was pitted from shell-fire, and I had to hang on for dear life to keep from being thrown off. Presently the Boches began shelling the road. They were not purposely after the ambulances. They were just shelling that road. If ambulances were there they were likely to get hit. I heard one coming. I knew she was headed toward us, but there was no place to duck to. Right behind us the road seemed suddenly to bow up like a steel band when the ends are sprung suddenly together. Then it settled back. I was so stunned by the shock of the explosion that I hardly felt anything else, but as the ambulance careened onward I began to feel a pain in my thigh. I put down my hand, and when I looked at it it was red. I had been hit. A man lying on his back in the ambulance, with his feet beside me, had lost more than half of one of them as a result of the same explosion. There wasn't time to do anything for either of us. The driver went ahead like mad and got us to a dressing station, where dozens of men were waiting for treatment.