tive machine-gun co-operation. I determined to take my sergeant
along with me, so that he would be as familiar with the scheme in hand
as I was. It was raining, of course, and the night was as black as pitch
when we both started out on our Sherlock Holmes excursion. I explained
the idea of the attack to him, and the part we had to play. The troops
on our right were going to carry out the actual attack, and we, on their
left flank, were going to lend assistance by engaging the Deutschers in
front and by firing half-right to cover our men's advance. My job was
clear enough. I had to bring as many machine guns as I could spare down
to the right of our own line to assist as much as possible in the real
attack. My sergeant and I went down to examine the ground where it was
essential for us to fix up. We got to our last trench on the right, and
clambering over the parapet, did what we could to find out the nature of
the ground in front, and see how we could best fix our machine guns to
cover the enemy. We soon saw that in order to get a really clear field
of fire it was necessary for us to sap out from the end of our existing
right-hand trench and make a machine-gun emplacement at the end.

[Illustration: 'Ere, you leave that ---- rum jar alone.]

This necessitated the digging of a sap of about ten yards in length,
collecting all the materials for making an emplacement, and mounting our
machine gun. It was now about 11 p.m., and all this work had to be
completed before dawn.

Having rapidly realized that there was not the slightest prospect of any
sleep, and that the morrow looked like being a busy day, we commenced
with characteristic fed-up vigour to carry out our nefarious design.

A section, myself and the sergeant, started on digging that sap, and
what a job it was! The Germans were particularly restless that night;
kept on squibbing away whilst we were digging, and as it was some time
before we had the sap deep enough to be able to stand upright without
fear of a puncture in some part of our anatomy, it was altogether most
unpleasant. At about an hour before dawn we had got as far as making the
emplacement. This we started to put together as hard as we could. We
filled sandbags with the earth excavated from the sap, and with frenzied
energy tried to complete our defences before dawn. The rain and
darkness, both very intense that night, were really very trying. One
would pause, shovel in hand, lean against the clay sid