The pluck! pluck! pluck! flop! of bits of projectile striking in the soft mud all about me came from every side. Little spurts of mud and water were thrown up close around me. I imagined I could feel the breath of passing shrapnel bullets. A bit of stick hit me in the face, and a gob of black mud landed squarely over my mouth.
So many mud-spurts threw up in front of me, on my right, and on my left, it seemed to me impossible I had escaped being hit.
I must have been in the very vortex of the shell's storm-centre.
Turning, thanking God I had so miraculously escaped when death had seemed so near, I dashed off as fast as I could run, heading blindly for the general direction of the Menin Road.
Fear lent wings to my feet as I realised I had, in my interest in my photography, advanced into plain sight of the line of heights of which General de Lisle had warned me.
I had not run a dozen steps when I thought of my heavy load, in pockets and hands, of shell heads. I tossed them away as I leaped on, tempted for a moment to hurl my camera after them.
Bang! Crash! Behind me came a second pair of shells, whose coming I had dreaded every second. To my delight, but one or two bullets came my way.
"I am gaining," I thought.
Bang! bang! another two burst overhead, throwing their deadly contents beyond me in the direction in which I was running.