AT ARMENTIÈRES.

[Illustration: Map: La Bassée-St. Julien]

We reached Armentières (relieving the Leinster Regiment and the 9th
Lancers in the first line trenches, distant from the first line German
trenches 30 yards) at a critical time.

The effort in progress was to straighten out our line so as to get it
level with Ypres, and the whole position all around was a very perilous
one. We were short of men--very short--and had practically no reserves.
Almost every available man had to do the work and duty of three. For a
month or so almost all the heavy work fell upon the line regiments, we
doing the wiring, digging, and the usual work of the Royal Engineers,
the number of these being relatively scanty indeed.

There was also some shortage of shells and ammunition for guns and
rifles, while of trench mortars a division had but few. We had to make
our own bombs out of jam tins. These were charged and stuck down, a
detonator being inserted, and we crawled out with them at night and
heaved them into the German trenches. We had to time each heave with the
most extreme accuracy, for the fraction of a moment too late meant the
bursting of the bomb in our hands. The game we played with the Huns
(keeping up a continuous fire all night, for instance) was one of pure
bluff. They were massed in, we estimated, four army corps, and could
have walked through us--if they had only known.

As my illustrations do not follow all the movements of my detachment, I
will say here that from Armentières we were shifted to Houplines, about