We had been in the trenches some three weeks before we had the opportunity of going "Over the Top." One's feelings the first time he goes "Over the Top" can never be known to anyone but himself. One will be dozing on the firing step, and the platoon leader comes around and whispers in your ear to get ready. The time is set for 1.13 A.M. You can hardly talk above a whisper for the least noise draws fire from the enemy. As the time draws near, you look at your watch and see that you have only seven or eight minutes. Yet, you almost sink down and it seems as though the bones have gone out of your legs and back. The time is getting short, and at last the big guns open up, and something just seems to push you up and over. Before you are aware of what is happening you are out on No Man's Land, acting like a veteran. After one or two of these successful raids you do not think war is so bad after all. It is real fun, but you have not seen enough of it yet. Tommie says: "Wait till you have three years of it and you'll be bloody well sick of it, Sammy." One year was enough to make me sick of it. Another very pleasant job is to crawl out on No Man's Land some dark night on patrol, dragging yourself along on the ground, an inch at a time, for fear of being heard and fired upon, and just as you think everything is going fine you run over a twig and break it. It snaps and sounds like a ton of dynamite going up, and then they send up a star-shell to light up No Man's Land, and you begin to say your prayers. Then all is quiet again and you finish your work and feel your way back to the trench. There is never a happier moment than when you drop back in your own trench, safe and sound, among friends. It was on one of the patrols that I got my first wounds. I was sent out about 1.30 A.M. with a patrol of English to do some very ticklish work, and, in cutting our way through some wire entanglements, the wire snapped and made a ringing noise and the Germans opened up on us, throwing everything at us but their shoes. We were giving them a receipt for all they sent us until, all at once, I began to feel sick and my arm became numb. I almost collapsed, but I knew that that was no place to act like a girl and faint, so I began crawling back toward our trench. It was hard to do, having only one hand free, but at last I crawled into the trench where I found another horror waiting. Our trench was full of gas and I did not have my gas mask on and as I got one breath of it I was finished, and the next thing I knew I was back in a nice little bed, between two white sheets, with a little blonde nurse smiling down at me. I thought that I had died and that I was in heaven until I heard a Tommy say: "Where in Hell is me 'Fags'," and then I knew I was not in heaven, but was not sure I was alive yet. At last I found out I was, for, about thirty minutes later, the gas began to make me sick. Gas sickness is the worst sickness in the world.