Both officers were killed instantly.

What came to be looked for as almost a daily event in Armentieres was the appearance, about 11 o'clock each morning, of an enemy aeroplane flying low over our trenches.

The "Mad Major," as he was popularly named by our boys, would fly so low as to make it difficult, apparently, for our anti-aircraft guns to get a shot at him, and there was no doubt he saw all he set out to see; but even so I think everyone admired his great courage.

While we were at the brick kiln with Major A. A. Martin, one of our team contracted scabies, and in consequence we were all segregated at the Ecole Professionelle in Rue d'Erquinghem where we were detained for a month, during which time I had charge of the town's incinerators, wherein all the refuse, both of the civilian and of the military population, was disposed of.

The big school was shelled several times while we were there, and was such a good mark for the German spotting balloons that we were glad to get out of it, and were lucky not to be among the many fatalities.

The ecole boasted a fairly large concert hall, and here the Division put on a picture programme three nights weekly.

On one occasion along with Bowy Atkinson, an Engineer corporal with a very fine baritone voice, I sang there at a concert given by the 4th Otago Regimental Band, conducted by Sergt.-Major Reg. George

The following evening, Alexander Watson, the famous elocutionist, gave a recital in the same hall.

One of the best remembered incidents of those early days was when one of our huge captive balloons broke away and drifted for miles over the enemy's lines. Our artillery did its best to bring the dirigible down, and the sky all round it was one mass of puffs of smoke from the shell-bursts; but, with the interested gaze of almost everyone in Armentieres drawn to it, the balloon continued serenely on its way, unharmed, until out of sight.

This incident turned out to be the subject of a first-class argument as to the merits of German marksmanship compared with our own, when Gen. "Blinky" Johnson's men were regretfully awarded second place.

This unsolicited and wholly inexpert judgment, of course, was quite beside the point, as the attack in this particular instance would be undertaken by the British anti-aircraft batteries, and it is highly improbable that our New Zealand gunners fired a single shot.

However, from Chapelle Armentieres one evening, Major Martin and I had watched the German gunners pick off, one after another, the figures of four saints adorning a church spire at Houplines, another of Armentieres' suburbs.

It was almost uncanny to note the expert way in which, with successive shots, those four figures were picked off.

Of course this target was stationary, whereas the balloon was on the move; but against this the latter was a huge affair, and possibly a 'plane firing tracer bullets would have been a more efficient method of disposing of the breakaway. They were beautiful summer evenings during those three months from the middle of May until the middle of July in 1916, when we moved out from Armentieres, and for some weeks ran a Rest Camp at La Strade, near Steenwerck, later returning to Armentieres to take over a hospital in the Rue de Messines.

The estaminets, of course, did a roaring business with the price of biere bock at one penny a glass—a cost, by the way, that was soon increased to threepence a glass—so that once again the Australians and New Zealanders, with their much higher pay, had spoiled things for the poorly-paid Tommies. The same thing had happened in Egypt, and was to happen everywhere we went in France and Belgium.

How the Tommies must have hated to see us coming into the sectors where they had been able to get what they wanted fairly reasonably for, as I have said, no sooner did we arrive than prices went up, and the poor Tommy went without, because he couldn't afford to pay. The estaminets of Armentieres were all packed one evening when a sudden "strafe" sent everyone into the streets amid flying plaster and bricks.

The cause of this untimely upset was a glar-ingglaring instance of idiocy on the part of someone who should have known better. Though it was broad daylight, a Scottish regiment marched in, in full regalia, with kilts swinging and bands playing.

The "spotters" in the German balloons, ever on the look-out, must have laughed at the foolishness of such a proceeding and, after sending word to their artillery, they no doubt enjoyed to the full the havoc their guns played with the population of Armentieres that evening.

In no time ambulances were working over-time, while all hospitals were soon filled to overflowing; and all because someone had not used a little commonsense.

The long-talked-of "Big Push" started on July 1st at Fricourt, and we could hear the incessant rumbling of the guns in Armentieres. From then until it was our turn to take a hand in the big offensive, which, it was confidently expected, would end the war.

It was about the middle of August when we set out on the long trek southward, and in the ensuing three weeks we certainly put in some very solid route marches. The seemingly endless cobbled roads between long lines of tall poplars made the trek a very tiring one, and blisters in the most tender parts of one's anatomy did not tend to make things any easier, especially with full packs up.

But I doubt if, individually, any of us ever felt fitter than during those long arduous days of marching that took us through to Arques, where Lord Roberts' body had lain in state, Ebblinghem and Blaringhem, to Pont Remy sid-ingsiding, where we entrained for further south; and later, through Arraines, Allery, Hallencourt, Bettencourt, Picquiny, Soues, and Rainville, to Dernancourt, where we slept in some scattered low-roofed huts, which apparently served for all divisions about to go into the line at that point, and which was only a short distance from the shattered town of Albert.

Two incidents of that great march I shall always remember, one being when, ravenously hungry after a week or so on reduced rations, we pulled up near a farmhouse where, I am almost ashamed to admit, I ate eight fried eggs at a sitting. Even so, I could not foot it with my pal, who went on until his score was thirteen, which seems now to have been an extremely indelicate as well an unlucky number; but you must remember we were both very healthy, as well as being very hungry.

The other occasion was when we struck a house in a small village where we were able to secure an upstairs room with two beds, which was available as a billet. As there were five of us, three slept in the larger bed, and two in the smaller one.

When I say "slept," I err, because there were others in those beds besides ourselves, and our efforts to awaken madame (though what she could have done that we couldn't I am unable to explain), would have brought out the fire brigade, had so small a village been able to boast of one.

One of our chaps, now headmaster at one of New Zealand's leading High Schools, could speak a little French, and Alf's shouts of "Anzacs, An-zacs,"Anzacs in his attempts on the French pronunciation of "insects," brought a thrill of exultation and, even at this distance, strikes me as being terribly funny. These and other like incidents brought a welcome diversion from the strenuous three weeks' march; and even on the road, with one and all assisting to while away the hours by whistling and singing all the popular choruses of the day, it will ever live in my memory for the spirit of camaraderie it engendered amongst the boys during those hot summer days of 1916.

Those meals by the wayside, when the wasps seemed to like the excellent Chiver's strawberry jam quite as much as we did, were always appreciated.

What a treat to be able to get rid of the increasingly burdensome pack, and to stretch out full-length on the broad of our backs in the shade, even though it was always hard to get going again for a while afterwards, until our stiff joints and tender spots were warmed up to the job.

At Allery we borrowed a piano from a resident, and gave a concert on the steps of the Town Hall, during which a French poilu and his bride, who had just been married by the Mayor inside, received what must have been, to them, a surprisingly vociferous reception from the hundreds of assembled Diggers, as they walked arm-in-arm from the hall.

M. Leclercq and his daughter Yvonne were refugees from Arras, and those of us who saw the piano safely restored to its owners, spent a very happy evening with them.

Our host had all sorts of French tongue-twisterstonguetwisters for us to attempt, and his humorous song about Napoleon avec Marie Louise, with its innumerable verses, had only to be heard to be appreciated. It is almost impossible for a Frenchman to say our word "these," as he seems incapable of beginning any word with the tongue between the teeth, and I'm sure our host thought I was a bit of a wizard to be able to get my tongue round the following nonsensical twister: "The sea ceaseth, and that sufficeth us, and thus dismisseth us with its blessing."

As a matter of fact, I have met very few English folk who could handle that particular jingle with any facility, and to poor M. Leclercq it was the last straw.

A great surprise awaited us shortly afterwards, when our musical instruments turned up in the old historic town of Picquiny, where, much to the amazement of the civilians, we gave a concert from a lorry in the streets one evening. I also conducted a concert at Brigade Head-quarters in Belloy the following night.

Good-bye was said to our packs at the previously mentioned wayside camp at Dernan-court, and we moved on through the final stages of the journey past Albert, with its well-remembered church spire supporting the depending statue of the Madonna and Child, through Fri-court, Mametz, and Montauban, from which Green Dump ran up to Longueval, and on past High and Delville Woods to Flers, where the Division went over on the morning of September 15th.

Poor France! The whole countryside showed every evidence of the terrible conflict that had been waged over it, being everywhere blasted and torn, with not a tree left standing where there had once been beautiful woods.

The lee side of every little rise in the contour of the ground had served at sometime or another as a suitable spot for a dug-out, and everywhere around lay the sheets of tin and corrugated iron that were so useful as a protection against rain. The limestone content of the earth, in which were hewn the miles of trenches that once contained living men, but which were now discarded as the advance developed, during the two and a-half months that it had been exposed to the elements, had everywhere caused these great gashes in its surface to turn green with mould, and the whole portent of the place was one of gloom and despair.

Near Fricourt we halted close by a battery of 15-inch guns, the shells from which could easily be seen and followed, both from behind and side on, as they hurtled high in the air, for all the world like huge footballs, on the eight miles' journey to their objective.

Standing directly behind one of these guns I was deafened for about 24 hours by the tremendous concussion, and I saw a horse fall dead from the same cause, as it was being driven along in front, at the moment a shell was discharged.

The huge craters made by the mines which signalled the commencement of the Big Push on July 1st, were easily detected, and explored, as were several spacious German dug-outs, expertly constructed and outfitted, nearby.

Further on, in the pitch blackness of night, the terrific din of the constantly flashing guns created an almost unreal atmosphere as shells, apparently of every calibre, screeched overhead, each with its own peculiar whine, some striking a high-sounding whistle, and others with a long-drawn-out deep moaning sound, while in between these two, whined shells, the noise of which ranged the whole gamut of the musical scale, with quarter tones added. Occasionally we could detect, high overhead, one of the big footballs from Fricourt, with its distinctive "uddle uddle uddle uddle uddle" in a perfect crescendo and diminuendo, as it approached, and continued on past us, seeming, by its peculiar sound, to be working its own passage on its long 8-mile journey to destruction.

The awful effect of this continual racket of whistling, screeching, whining, moaning, and rattling of shells, with the almost incessant flashes of our gun-bursts on either side, and often quite close, together with the intermittent bursting of enemy shells, for all these steel presents were not going the one way; gave one a feeling of insignificance, as of a microbe in a spot that may well have been a cross between Dante's In-ferno and The Valley of the Shadow.

But all this has probably been said in a much better way than I could describe it, so I will only say that eventually I did reach High Wood, where Major Martin conducted an aid post in a very exposed position. It seemed inevitable that he would be killed; and I was not at all surprised—though, of course, greivously sorry—to learn that he had been so seriously wounded that he died next day.

It was a thousand pities that this brilliant surgeon who, by the way, was the author of that well-known war book, "A Surgeon in Khaki," could not have been at the Corps Dressing Station at Becordal, where his expert use of the knife would have been of much more value to the sadly over-worked staff of doctors, who were quite unable to cope with the large number of stretcher cases awaiting attention.

Flers was literally the end of the world for us, and it seemed impossible that many would come out alive; but the spirit of the troops was wonderful to see, and enough acts of bravery were done to warrant a liberal distribution of V.C.'s.

Truly wonderful work was done by the stretcher-bearers who, though often tired to the point of collapse, would re-form and go out again and again, to trudge through the extremely heavy going, often sliding headlong with their precious cargoes into deep shell-holes, which the rain and thin mud had filled, so that their presence was not detected.

It was superhuman work, and no praise could be too great.

If I have singled out the deeds of the stretcher-bearers first, it is of course because I saw more of their work than I did of any other unit; but everyone knows of, and gives unstinted praise to, the actual fighting troops, and none with more sincerity than myself.

It was on this occasion of the New Zealand Division's attack at Flers, that the tanks were used for the very first time in France, and coming upon some of them in the pitch darkness the night previous to the attack, we were at a loss to know what they were until, getting a look at one in the early dawn, we saw that it was His Majesty's Landship "Duke."

We suffered heavy casualties during those twenty-three momentous days in the line, and lost approximately one-third of our total strength; but undoubtedly the death roll would have been much higher had it not been for the heavy rain which turned the whole sector into a sea of mud, in places several feet thick. In consequence, many of the big shells sent over by the enemy failed to explode, and merely buried themselves into the mud. How we cursed that altogether too affectionately clinging mud, for to walk a hundred yards made one more tired than would have several miles under ordinary conditions.

It was impossible to find one's puttees, and these had to be cut off with a knife.

However, as I have said, though it was a terrible hindrance and caused so much discomfort, that same much-maligned mud certainly saved us a much heavier casualty list.

I'm sure I am right in saying that our quartermaster's store, which in this instance was a bell tent, was the only habitation above ground in Green Dump; and my assistant, Bob Dyson, used to perform the solemn ceremony of sprinkling a few drops of precious rum round it every night in an endeavour to keep the shells off. Whether or not it was this "rum" precaution which saw us safely through those twenty-three days, cannot be asserted with any assurance; but in spite of all the odds against us, we were not among the many splendid chaps left behind when the time for evacuation came.

I don't remember that we ever had much to sing about, under the trying circumstances, but I have been reliably informed that one pitch-black night, when General Russell was riding by our tent, with our quartermaster, Capt. E. M. Finlayson, he heard someone singing the well-known ballad, "I hear you calling me," and inquired who it was.

On being told, "Fin" says that the General remarked that anyone with a voice like that had no right to be so far up.

That this incident was substantially true is fairly evident from the fact that very shortly after we left the Somme area, the General gave orders that never again were the entertainers to be put into the line.

One of our chief worries at the Green Dump address was that on two sides of our tent were stacked dozens of boxes containing hundreds of Mills bombs, and we could not help wondering what a direct hit would do to them—and us. Those twenty-three days seemed endless, but at last, on the 4th of October, we got word to move out, and at Bray, where we camped on that first evening, I well remember sitting in the midst of a crowd of our boys and singing all their requests for perhaps an hour or more.

Of our orchestral members, our first cornet-tist—Joe Bayley, of Auckland-was killed out-right, and several others badly wounded and, in consequence, lost to us.

From Bray we went by train to Longpre, where we detrained at three o'clock in the morning in heavy rain, and completed the other fif-teenfifteen kilometres to Huchenville on foot.

It teemed throughout the whole of that march, and with everyone so "done-up" after such a long spell in the line, hundreds of Diggers fell out and lay in the long wet grass at the side of the road, until ambulance cars could be sent back to pick them up and convey them to their billets.

Coming further north, we stayed at the small village of Outtersteen, where I had a billet which the Great War Cartoonist, Capt. Bruce Bairns-father, had once occupied; and Madame Charlet, whose church-organist husband was at the front with the French army, had a number of the artist's original cartoons, including several of herself.

In November we returned to Armentieres as part of what was known as "Frank's Force," and received a most cordial reception from our civilian friends.

One of the most popular of these latter was a quick-witted madame with a ready answer for everyone, who did a great business in her egg and chips cafe right opposite the hospital gates. Though she was what might be termed "a hard case," she knew where to draw the line, and was known to all as a thoroughly chaste, as well as charitable character; and so, in relating this incident of the War, I trust it may not be regarded, especially in view of these enlightened times, as being in any way indelicate.

To come quickly to the point: before we left Armentieres on our three months' trek to and from the Somme, it had become very evident that madame was in a way that may be tersely described as "certain," and when it was remarked within her hearing that it seemed more than likely madame would soon have two extra little mouths to feed, she was quick to assure us: "Not on your life, Digger, un, un seulment," but the assertion failed to shake our considered opinion.

When we returned to the town on this occasion, no one seemed more pleased to welcome us than our friend at the egg and chip cafe in the Rue de Messines, who, standing at her door, and scanning the ranks until she espied a certain N.C.O., held one finger aloft as she shouted, "Sergeant, un, un," her radiant smile beaming from ear to ear. The laugh that went up from the boys, who were all in the joke, was taken up by the happy father who appeared in the door-way holding the precious baby, and it is only fair to someone, to say that the latter was the very living image of its dad.

During November I conducted several concerts in and around Armentieres; on one occasion we entertained the 3rd Dinks where they were quartered at the old Civil Hospice in Half-past Eleven Square.

We also performed for Auckland and Ar-tillery troops in a shell-battered warehouse in Houplines, and at a dilapidated tissage factory not far from the Armentieres station, we had a great night's fun, the highlight of which was Capt. "Jockey" Grant's singing of "Everybody's doing it," and "Syncopation rules the nation," when he appeared in a most original costume, the large part of which consisted of a gas helmet, gum-boots, and a Sam Browne, with an iron cross "nuggetted" on his chest.

Always a most popular officer, that night set the seal of comradeship that was never to be broken.

During the last ten days of the month we were detailed to proceed nightly, per ambulance car, to assist the 56th Divisional ("Tommy") Concert Party, by playing an overture and entr'acte at their performance in the town of La Gorgue, which was reached by way of the Rue d'Erquinghem, through Bac St. Maur, Sailly, Nouveau Monde, and Estaires. Theirs was the first concert party we had heard in France, and we were all thrilled by their won-derful performances, especially those of their great comedian, the famous Harry Brandon. The long journey to and from the theatre nightly was whiled away with the new songs and choruses we learned from those clever Tommies, a prime favourite being "A Broken Doll," which was then brand-new, and "Sergeant MacAdoo" (or "Hoch hie, oui, oui").

General Russell told me years afterwards that it was his visit to this 56th Divisional Concert Party that decided him that we, too, must have our entertainers; the only thing that puzzled him being where we were going to get performers to compare with those cf the 56th. He described himself as being very agreeably surprised at the excellent talent we were able to unearth in our Division, and it was then he gave orders that the selected entertainers for the concert party were to be detached from their units and kept out of all "stunts" in future, as, he said, they were of more value to the N.Z.E.F. elsewhere than in the line.

Early in December we were moved in to Estaires, where I found a comfortable billet in the home of M. et Mme. Seynaeve-Roussel, a kindly old couple who kept a hat shop in the Rue du Rivage; and I shall always remember the amusement I gave them in my all-too-persistent efforts to get my sluggish uvula to work on the correct pronunciation of "Chapelleries en tous genres," the caption stencilled on their shop window, and which, though it is so extremely difficult for us to say, simply means "Hats of all kinds."

Oudelle, the little maid, and Fox, a sprightly fox-terrier, completed the household, the entree to which was open to me at all times just like one of the family, for whose unbounded kindness I was, and am, sincerely grateful.

It was in the mairie, or town hall at Estaires that I first heard that popular war ditty which begins, "And when I tell them how beautiful you are, they'll never believe me," when it was performed during one of Lena Ashwell's enjoyable shows in 1916.

In the square, too, we heard Lord Derby's very fine recruiting band when it came over to give the boys in France a treat, and one of its brightest numbers, which I was successful in getting orchestral parts for, so that we were able to play it very often afterwards, was that beautiful lilting intermettzo "Aisha" by Lindsay.

Early in the war the Germans had taken the then mayor and some of his councillors and shot them against the stone balustrade in front of the town hall in this same city square.