I could hear some ever such funny shells dropping and they sounded like footballs bouncing along the ground, and then I heard some banging up in the front, front lines where I’d just left. Banging these here gongs - they had big shell cases and when they used gas they banged them gongs, you know. Well these was gas shells sending over and they sounded just like a football bouncing on the ground.

And later, when I got back a mile or two behind, oh blimey, there was these chaps laying there on the grass, all ice-frozen grass, laying on groundsheets as yellow as a lemon with their tongues hanging out, gassed, oh they could never live. What a mess they was in.