While proceeding along the line, I filmed the regimental padre of the Irish Guards wading through the mud and exchanging a cheery word with every man he passed. What a figure he was! Tall and upright, with a long dark beard, and a voice that seemed kind and cheery enough to influence even the dead. He inspired confidence wherever he went. He stayed awhile to talk to several men who were sitting in their dug-outs pumping the water out before they could enter. His words seemed to make the men work with redoubled vigour. Then he passed on.
Along this section, at the back of the dug-outs, were innumerable white crosses, leaning at all angles, in the mud. They were the last resting-place of our dead heroes. On each cross a comrade had written a short inscription, and some of these, though simple, and at times badly spelt, revealed a pathos and a feeling that almost brought tears to the eyes. For all its slime and mud it was the most beautiful cemetery I have ever seen. On some of the graves were a few wildflowers. No wreaths; no marble headstones; no elaborate ornamentation; but in their place a battered cap, a rusty rifle or a mud-covered haversack, the treasured belongings of the dead.
I had barely finished filming this scene when with a shriek several shells came hurtling overhead from the German guns and burst about a hundred yards behind our firing line. Quickly adjusting the camera, I covered the section with my lens. In a few seconds more shells came over, and turning the handle I filmed them as they burst, throwing up enormous quantities of earth. The Huns were evidently firing at something. What that something was I soon found out. An enemy observer had seen a small working party crossing an open space. The guns immediately opened fire. Whether they inflicted any casualties I do not know, but a few minutes later the same party of men passed me as though nothing had happened.
The rain was still falling, and the mist getting heavy, so I decided to make my way back to headquarters. Packing up, and bidding adieu to the officers, I started on the return journey through the communication trenches. One officer told me to go back the same way, via "Signpost Lane." "You will manage to get through before their evening 'strafing,'" he called out. After wearily trudging through nearly a mile of trenches, I came out at "Signpost Lane," and I am never likely to forget it.
We had left the shelter of the trench, and were hurrying, nearly doubled, across a field, when a German observer spotted us. The next minute "whizz-bangs" started falling around us like rain. No matter which way I turned, the tarnation things seemed to follow and burst with a deafening crash. At last, I reached the crossing, and was making my way down the trench lining the road, when a shell dropped and exploded not thirty feet ahead. But on I went, for a miss is as good as a mile. About a hundred yards further on was the battered shell of a farm-house. When almost up to it a couple of shells dropped fairly in the middle of it and showered the bricks all round. A fairly warm spot!
I had just reached the corner of the building when I heard the shriek of a shell coming nearer. I guessed it was pretty close, and without a moment's hesitation dropped in the mud and water of a small ditch, and not a moment too soon for with a dull thud the shell struck and burst hardly seven feet from me. Had I not fallen down these lines would never have been written. Picking myself up, I hurried on. Still the shells continued to drop, but fortunately at a greater distance. When I reached Croix Rouge, I was literally encased in mud. Our progress along the road had been anxiously watched by the sentries and by my chauffeur.
"Well, sir," said the latter, with a sigh of relief, "I certainly thought they had you that time."