kinds, and though they managed their relief at night with little shelling, early next morning, Lieutenant E. Shears was killed by shell. It was a bad sector in every way, for not only did the Battalion link on here to the Belgian army—later relieved by the French—on their left, and any point of junction of Allied forces is always severely dealt with, but the enemy were kept in tension by constant raids, or the fear of them, all along the line. This meant that their SOS signals went up on the least provocation and their barrages followed with nervous punctuality. Added to this, fatigue-work was very heavy, not only in repairs but in supply; and the necessary exposure of the carrying-parties led to constant casualties.
On the 5th July, for instance, at two in the morning, gas shells fired from projectors (the Germans were searching the line in earnest that night) fell on a working-party of No. 4 Company. Nineteen men were at once prostrated, of whom one died then and there, and two a few days later; while Lieutenant Bagenal was slightly affected. (It is difficult, especially in the dark, to keep working-parties, who have to work against time, inside their gas-masks.) They were shelled for the rest of the day with no further casualties.
On the 6th July Major Hon. H. R. Alexander, leaving for England to attend the officers' course at Aldershot, Captain R. R. C. Baggallay took over the command, and on the 8th July they were relieved by the 3rd Coldstream and bivouacked at Cardoen farm, where they spent two days nominally resting—that is to say, supplying one hundred and ten men each night for the detestable work of carrying-parties to the front line. Lieut.-Colonel Rocke, D.S.O., commanding since May 24, returned from leave on July 8, but unluckily on the 11th, when the Battalion was in line, in the wreck of Boesinghe Village (Headquarters at Boesinghe Château), slipped and broke his shoulder while going round the trenches, and Captain Baggallay again took over command. There was steady well-ranged shelling all that day, particularly on Boesinghe
