TCD MS 10821 folio 21 recto
[June 27th 1916] to kill & it finds out any weak points in the <gas helmets>. It is more merciful than the German gas as it is so deadly & there is very little suffering or struggling for breath with it. If the Germans were unprepared for it, it must have killed everyone in front who received it fairly strong. It is however not warfare, but a war of chemistry & machinery. All vegetation in front withered away, all the thistles & plants turned yellow & died so powerful was the volume of gas. Except for a few shells from a long distance the night was quiet & very dark.
June 28th. I got very little sleep in the night being constantly disturbed by messages & also by our guns which fired salvoes periodically during the night. In retaliation the Boche at Stand-to plastered our trenches with shrapnel: one man was badly hit at the beginning. Every half hour or so afterwards he would suddenly put over twenty to thirty shells, so that this part of the line is no longer a quiet part & there is more to come yet I am afraid. Our trench mortars replied with ‘Tadpoles’, 60 lb bombs on a long stick which were very effective & frightening. The whole morning we were being steadily shelled, the ‘crackers’ are the noisiest, but the 5.9 do the most damage. No sleep was possible during the morning as