The northern attack was in many ways worse to bear and worse to see. The menace to the coast was frightful when the enemy struck up to Bailleul and captured Kemmel Hill from a French regiment which had come up to relieve some of our exhausted and unsupported men. All through this country between Estaires and Merville, to Steenwerck, Metern, and Bailleul, thousands of civilians had been living on the edge of the battlefields, believing themselves safe behind our lines. Now the line had slipped and they were caught by German shellfire and German guns, and after nearly four years of war had to abandon their homes like the first fugitives. I saw old women coming down lanes where 5.9’s were bursting and where our gunners were getting into action. I saw young mothers packing their babies and their bundles into perambulators while shells came hurtling over the thatched roofs of their cottages. I stood on the Mont des Chats looking down upon a wide sweep of battle, and saw many little farmsteads on fire and Bailleul one torch of flame and smoke.