There was a continuous rumble and grumble of
bombardment while we were going up with the
rations on the day after I got back from leave. As we
came over the hill beyond Bray the darkness toward
Albert was lit with the glare of explosions that blinked
and bumped. Dottrel! remarked that there seemed
to be a bit of a mix-up, which was his way of saying
that he didn't altogether like the look of things that
evening.
When we arrived at the ration dump the quarter-
master-sergeant told us that the battalion had been
standing to for the past two hours. It was possible
that the Boches might be coming across. "C" com-
pany was in the front line. The noise was subsiding,
so I went up there, leaving Joe to pay his nightly call
at battalion headquarters.
Stumbling and splashing up a communication
trench known as Canterbury Avenue, with the parcel
of smoked salmon stuffed into my haversack, I felt
that smoked salmon wasn't much of an antidote for
people who had been putting up with all that shell-
fire. Still, it was something. . . . Round the next
corner I had to flatten myself against the wall of that
wet ditch, for someone was being carried down on a
stretcher. An extra stretcher-bearer walking behind
told me it was Corporal Price of "C" company. "A
rifle-grenade got him... looks as if he's a goner...."
His face was only a blur of white in the gloom; then,
with the drumming of their boots on the trench-
boards, Corporal Price left the War behind him.
I remembered him vaguely as a quiet little man in
Durley's platoon. No use offering him smoked sal-
mon, I thought, as I came to the top of Canterbury
Avenue, and, as usual, lost my way in the maze of
saps and small trenches behind the front line. Wat-
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