Diary Entry - 4th September, 1916

At twelve midnight, as I was awake, I heard four shells come whistling over, and they were all duds, so I reached for my box respirator as suspected they were gas shells. Sure enough, in about a minute, there was  regular stream of shells whistling over and they were all duds, so on went our respirators and we lay there for an hour, thinking it would soon be over. As a matter of fact, Fritz pumped them over like machine gun bullets until four thirty, keeping a solid stream up the whole time. It was most uncomfortable as we expected one on the dug out roof any moment, and it was none too strong. They were falling all around us and it seemed impossible to go out without being struck by one. At four forty I sallied forth and was pleased to find a good fresh breeze blowing and I removed the respirator to breathe fresh air once more. There has been one good result though - Boschie evidently thinks he has knocked us all out as he has not shelled us since and we have been laying low, not firing. The shells fired we put down at a conservative estimate of 2,00,0 and so did the 15th on our right. The 9th on our left had two men gassed and they have both gone under since, poor chaps. I expect they suffered frightful agony. I am glad to say we had no ill results. The Colonel came round in the morning and asked for a specimen, so we dug him one out and it proved to be a 4.2 shell about 14 inches long, full of some chemical which kept oozing out round the collar under the fuse - a nasty green looking liquid.