Further Research

I did some research to do with being gassed and what happened to the soldier's who experienced it first hand. I found two interesting accounts- written as diaries - on this website:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/diaries/index.htm

The first describes the first gas attack in 1915:

"Officers, and Staff officers too, stood gazing at the scene, awestruck and dumbfounded; for in the northerly breeze there came a pungent nauseating smell that tickled the throat and made our eyes smart. Men were frothing at the mouth, eyes started from their sockets, and they fell writhing at the officer's feet."

Written by Anthony R. Hossack joined the Queen Victoria Rifles at the beginning of the War and served with them on the Western Front from early 1915 till after the Battle of Arras, where, in July 1917, he was wounded, returning to France at the end of February 1918, when he was attached to the M.G. Battalion of the 9th (Scottish) Division, and, after coming through the retreat from St. Quentin, was taken prisoner in the battle for Mt. Kemmel.

The second describes the German Gas Attack at Ypres:

"Like some liquid the heavy-coloured vapour poured relentlessly into the trenches, filled them, and passed on.

For a few seconds nothing happened; the sweet-smelling stuff merely tickled their nostrils; they failed to realise the danger.  Then, with inconceivable rapidity, the gas worked, and blind panic spread.

Hundreds, after a dreadful fight for air, became unconscious and died where they lay - a death of hideous torture, with the frothing bubbles gurgling in their throats and the foul liquid welling up in their lungs.  With blackened faces and twisted limbs one by one they drowned - only that which drowned them came from inside and not from out."

Others, staggering, falling, lurching on, and of their ignorance keeping pace with the gas, went back.

Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. III, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923

These sources really helped me when devising and coming up with ideas on what else to include in our piece and what it was really like for the soldiers who had to experience it.