On Tuesday, August 29, 1916, my battery pulled into Martinsaart, in the Somme district, which lies three miles immediately west of Thiepval.  The Battle of the Somme had been raging since July 1.  We took up our position in a beautiful orchard, its trees laden down with apples, and along the hedge on one side of the orchard were ten beehives, humming and throbbing with busy bee life.  Underneath some large apple trees we placed our guns and the thickly woven hedge right in front of us gave us a splendidly concealed nook; through the hedge we cut a hole for our beauty’s nozzle.

At 5:15 in the afternoon we started registering our “love letters,” in preparation for another phase of the big bombardment which had been more or less continuously in operation since the commencement of the battle, and after accomplishing our purpose we got a “stand down.”  The apples clustering on the trees looked as tempting to us as did the apple of our first father and before we started registering, every man in the battery had mentally made his tree selection as the one he would climb as soon as he got a minute to himself.  It was unnecessary to climb, however; with the advent of the explosion of our guns, the concussion shook the trees as with a strong wind and the luscious fruit showered upon our heads in abundance.

Then we cleaned up our guns, munching the red apples, and the enemy planes were humming like bees over our heads, darting here and there like bats, trying to find our place of concealment, but we were too well hidden.  When night fell, McLean and I started for the rear, passing the hives on our way.  “By, Golly, Grant, here’s a chance for a mouthful; I know how to handle this proposition,” and he made for the hives.  He lifted off the top, with the bees flying all around, and handed me the top to hold while he inserted his hand and took out a comb, which he passed over to me, saying, “Take this till I get another, the damned bees are stinging me.”  Thousands were around him.  I took it and started on the dead run for my billet, about 400 yards away, and in a minute or two Mac followed with another comb.  The fellows greeted us with exclamations of delight and surprise; many of us had been two years in the battle line without ever having seen, let alone tasted, such a delicious morsel.  Every man in the billet fell to, munching the honey with expressions of sheer joy; every fellow in the bunch had his face and hands littered with the sticky joy like so many kids munching taffy.  In the midst of our feasting, visitors called; the robbed bees came flying into the room after their treasure.  McLean, by this time, had been stung about twenty times, and I had about a dozen nips on my hands and face, and in the very heat of our argument with our visitors, “Stand to!” was sounded, and honey, bees and everything else was dropped as we raced for the guns.  But the bees did not drop us; they chased us every bit of the way; they attacked our hands, our mouths, our necks,—­wherever there was a particle of our anatomy exposed we were stung.