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33
4th INSTALMENT.
5th July 1916. The Billets I last wrote from now consist of one chimney and a heap of charred bricks. It was a big homestead and accommodated the whole Company. The Hun apparently thought it concealed a gun for he poured shells in there in salvos until he was sure there was nothing left standing. Fortunately everybody was able to get out in time. Since then I have done another turn in the front line where things have livened up considerably. "The great push" which we have heard about for twenty months past has at last started and this little strip of country from the Belgian Coast down through that country and France to Switzerland has become an inferno of bursting high explosive. The constant row of the guns firing and the shells exploding is now so loud and continuous that it robs us of the warning shriek of an approaching shell and the first thing you know now is the explosion and that quantities of earth clods are falling on you. If they land much closer to you than that - well, you don't know anything about it and that's the end of it. That warning shriek of the shell is always looked upon as a comfort; it only gives you about two seconds, but it is just time to duck, not that ducking is any use for it is quite an understood thing in the army that if a shell is meant for you (some say your number is engraved on the nosecap) it will find you no matter where you be. You will often hear a chap say as a shell xxxxx sails harmlessly over head, "I hope that was "my" shell". Shell shock is a very real complaint and quite a frequent one possibly growing more frequent as the size and effect of the shells increase. I had always imagined that shell shock was a sort of climax to a gradual wearing of the nerves through constant exposure to shell fire. Such is not the