As he spoke a roar burst forth on the line not far away, seeming to me to come from a point just south of Cavan's House. For fifteen minutes Hun howitzer shells fell in scores on the luckless area of the successful advance. The air reverberated with the crashes of the huge shells, which fell in such rapid succession one could not count them.
After we left Ypres, we heard still another fierce deluge of shell-fire fall on that spot late in the afternoon.
Such was the commencement of the fight for Hill 60, near Verbranden Molen, which was to be contested bitterly for many a day, costing thousands of casualties to friend and foe. The next day, the 19th, the Germans tried to win back the position at the point of the bayonet, and succeeded in gaining a foot-hold on the southern slope of the hill, only to lose it after a hand to hand fight that afternoon.
The Huns also gave Ypres and the Menin Road a heavy shelling for an hour on the 19th, just twenty-four hours too late to catch our "joy party." The day of our visit was the last one that found the Menin Road a safe place, for daily thereafter the 17-inch shells were busy with the terrible work that was to end in the utter devastation of Ypres—work which was to continue for the rest of April, through May, and well into June, with but little respite.
A couple of days later the West Surreys had a fight for Hill 60 that nearly swept away the battalion. The Germans brought up some field guns and hammered away at our parapets at close range. When the West Surreys came out, after gallantly holding the position until relieved, a subaltern was the senior officer left in command. The "Princess Pat's," too, were to leave the majority of their officers there. Hill 60 took toll of all but a remnant of that regiment.
We dropped "Algy" Court at his billets, then hastened to St. Omer, where a good dinner was awaiting us. St. Leger's mess was always a cheery one, having among its members Surgeon-General O'Donnell, Colonel Cummings, of the R.A.M.C., Colonel Warren, of the Army Post Office, and Colonel Thresher, the Camp Commandant. That night Colonel Father Keating and Captain Father Rawlinson were fellow-guests, two greatly beloved "Padres," in either of whom was sufficient subtle merriment and quiet humour to cheer up a whole corps of pessimists.
A captured German order gave rather gruesome details of a liquid-fire thrower of sorts, intended, so the order said, for fighting in streets and houses.
The German official report accused the British at Hill 60 of using shells containing poisonous fumes.
Odd forerunners, these, in the light of subsequent events, for on Friday, April 23rd, came the first German gas attack.