"For three hours I slept quite comfortably. At 3.15 I was awakened by a terrific row. The whole place was shaking like an earthquake; the wall was quivering; our guns were firing rapid as fast as ever they could go; every gun in the city, in fact, every gun on the British Front for miles, was pounding the enemy with shells. A man came in to say that the order was 'everybody down in the cellar.' So I threw some clothes on and went down there. There was a crowd down there. The parties which had been out working had returned, but not without casualties; there had been a few killed and wounded. At a table in the centre of the room, a lamp on it, sat Captain Andrews, in his shirt sleeves, and other officers, seriously contemplating a message which had arrived, the purport of which they were trying to understand. The man who had brought it was under arrest as a suspected spy; but after inquiries had been made at Brigade it was discovered that he was perfectly bona fide; So Major Brighten ordered him to be set free.
"I found myself next to Verity, so I asked him whatever all this hubbub was about. He replied that it was the expected push on our right—'the Messines push'—taking place. The New Zealanders (and Australians, the 36th Ulster Division, the 16th South Ireland Division, the 23rd Division, and the 47th London Division) were going over the top, and this was our barrage. Captain Andrews said that this was a bombardment which our guns were conducting, double in intensity to any which we inflicted upon the enemy during the Battle of the Somme! It was a row indeed, and it continued for some time. Then dawn broke, and it had slackened. At 5.30 we came upstairs and had some refreshment in the mess; the gramophone was set going ('The Bing Boys'—'Another little drink wouldn't do us any harm'—was the precise record which was put on as soon as we entered the mess!); things were much quieter, but we were expecting the Germans to retaliate."
It was at these early morning breakfast parties in the Prison that the grim significance of the word "Gate" impressed itself upon me. "Which gate did you come in at?" was a very common question which one officer would ask another on their return from work in the trenches. "I came in by the Dixmude Gate," or "I came in by the Menin Gate," would be the reply. And some would say that they had avoided "gates" altogether and threaded their way across the open. These gates were places of evil omen. The enemy had the exact range of them, and knew when working parties would be likely to be passing them. And upon no spot was conferred a greater legacy of awe than upon the Menin Gate. It was always one of the most terrible spots in Ypres. People were killed there every day. To go past the Menin Gate was considered to be asking for it. So a terror of the Menin Gate was bred in me before I had ever seen the gruesome, stinking spot. And the Menin Gate had taken its toll on Messines Night.
My letter continues: "At 6 I went to bed again. Just as I was doing so, gas shells began to burst once more, but we did not smell much; the wind could not have been very favourable to the enemy. I soon got to sleep again. We all did. In my room, apart from myself, there are Verity, Priestley, and Barker. They are in different companies from me.
"We got up at midday to-day. Things are very much quieter; there are only, on an average, about one or two bangs per minute; and those are generally caused by our guns firing shells on the enemy. Very few German shells have burst here to-day since the terrible bombardment in the early hours of the morning. We lost no officers last night, but a few non-commissioned officers and men were killed and wounded while returning last night. An official message has come through that all our objectives were captured this morning."
It was on this afternoon that Major Brighten gathered all officers together for a conference in Headquarters Mess, and read out to us, in great exultation, a "secret" Special Order of the Day by Sir Douglas Haig dated, if I remember rightly, the day before Messines. I wish I had a copy of that Order in my hands now in order that I might quote it verbatim here. In the course of his Order I remember the Field-Marshal declared that another such blow as those which we had inflicted upon the enemy on the Somme, on the Anare, and at Arras would win the war! Major Brighten, with his eternal optimism, honestly believed it; and so did everybody else. Everybody was effervescing with excitement about Plumer's brilliant victory at Messines. I hold now with Mr. John Buchan, and I realized then, that "Sir Herbert Plumer had achieved what deserves to be regarded as in its own fashion a tactical masterpiece"; but, as I have already pointed out, I took a much more telescopic view of the World War than that. So, while sharing the satisfaction of the others in the Messines success, I could not endorse the ultra-optimistic view of the course of the campaign which Sir Douglas Haig had inspired. Major Brighten was beaming with delight as he read out Sir Douglas Haig's Order, and informed us that General Jeudwine and General Stockwell, with whom he had just been conversing, were equally "bucked" about it all. And he laughingly chaffed me upon my pessimism. I told him quite frankly that I did not share the general opinion.
That night only one company had to go out to work, and the company detailed was C Company; so I was not affected.
In the course of a letter written the following day (June 8) I wrote:
"I went to bed about 10 last night. About 2, Barker, Priestley, and Verity returned from their working parties. Priestley was very doleful; he was mournfully discussing the horrors of the war, and of his evening's experiences in particular. And it appears that there was some reason, for he had been in command of a party of eight whose mission had been to fetch back some steel helmets from the trenches. (A ruse had been played upon the Boche on Messines Night. A large number of helmets had been placed in such a position as to encourage the Boche to think that we were concentrating troops there instead of, or as well as, at Messines and Wytschaete!) They were returning, and Priestley was remarking that the Boche was very quiet just at present, when a shell burst amongst them. Four of his party were wounded and one killed; and a piece of shrapnel went right through the tube of his box-respirator, he himself escaping unhurt. A near shave! 'Well, do you think those helmets were worth the life of one man and injury to four others?' I heard him asking."
In my next letter (June 9) I wrote: