2012/2b.plaintext

   1 The news that you had been picked up by Military Police trying to volunteer for your local regiment filled me with dread. You were not alone, I later met many underage boys who had deceived the recruiting sergeants and made their way to the battlefields of France and Belgium, but your courage shamed me into joining the fight myself.
   2
   3 At that time I had only just begun to hear stories of the misery of trench warfare but it was clear to many of us that this was a new kind of war, one in which technology would play a central role. This fact was not lost on my erstwhile employers who were quick to learn that I had joined up and to my surprise the two gentlemen from VERONA met me as I disembarked on the continent with a thousand other new recruits. I was taken to a chateau for briefing on the German development of gas weapons, and on the twenty first of April nineteen fifteen I was sent by train to join the Second Army sector in the Ypres Salient at St Julien.
   4
   5 The following day I was introduced to the full horror of modern warfare. At five o’clock the lead pipes laid over the edge of the German trenches hissed and a mist rolled towards us across the open land. It was yellowish-green, a hellish, sulphurous haze, and the effects were almost instantaneous. VERONA had anticipated the attack and my orders were to record my observations on the deployment of the weapon. I learned later that the valves were open for just five minutes before the gas cylinders were empty and the gas was blown by a gentle northern breeze at about five miles an hour. But the effects were felt for hours afterwards, and the leisurely pace of the billowing cloud belied its destructive power as it drifted along a section of the trenches at least a half mile in length.
   6
   7 The gas left many survivors unable to speak, and this increased the panic, especially among the younger troops. Those who were not overwhelmed by the choking chlorine withdrew to Boesinghe, but fear of the terrifying new weapon seeped through the lines and that position too was soon lost.
   8
   9 While other VERONA agents continued to take observations across the battlefield I was sent to the rear to examine the survivors, and to record the efforts of the medics to alleviate the soldiers’ suffering.