"Yes, sir, ... a gas shell came into the mess. Mr Kelly and Mr Wood have been wounded as well.... We've got them away to the hospital, sir.... Mr Kelly got it in the face, sir.... I'm afraid he's blinded."
"How was Major Veasey wounded?"
"In the arm and foot, sir.... Mr Wood was not so bad."
"There's no other officer at D Battery, sir," I said to the colonel, who was already turning up the list of officers in his note-book.
"Tell him that the senior sergeant will take command until an officer arrives," replied the colonel promptly, "and then get on to Drysdale at the infantry. I'll speak to him.... I don't like the idea of Veasey being wounded by a gas shell," he added quickly. Depression descended upon all three of us.
The colonel told Captain Drysdale to inform the Infantry brigadier what had happened, and to obtain his immediate permission to go to the battery, about half a mile away. "You've got a subaltern at the waggon line.... Get him up," advised the colonel, "the sergeant-major can carry on there.... Tell the General that another officer will arrive as soon as possible to do liaison."
The colonel looked again at his note-book. "We're frightfully down in officers," he said at last. "I'll ask Colonel —— of the —rd if he can spare some one to take on to-night."
"I hope Veasey and Kelly are not badly wounded," he said later, lighting a cigarette. "And I'm glad it didn't come last night, when there were three battery commanders at the bridge party. That would have been catastrophe."
That night the Boche rained gas shells all round our quarters in the sunken road. Hubbard and myself and "Ernest" were not allowed much sleep in our right little, tight little hut. One shell dropped within twenty yards of us; thrice fairly heavy shell splinters played an unnerving tattoo upon our thick iron roof; once we were forced to wear our box-respirators for half an hour.
At 11.30 P.M. the colonel telephoned from his hut to ours to tell me that new orders had come in from the brigade-major. "We are putting down a barrage from midnight till 12.15 A.M.," he said. "You needn't worry. I've sent out orders to the batteries.... Our infantry are making an assault at 12.15 on Doleful Post. It ought to startle the Hun. He won't expect anything at that hour."