ike electric flashes. It was light enough so that we could see
dimly.

Just ahead we could hear the murmur of the Huns as they chatted in
the trench. They hadn't seen us. Evidently they didn't suspect and
were more or less careless.

The Lieutenant waited until the sound of voices was a little louder
than before, the Boches evidently being engaged in a fireside
argument of some kind, and then he jumped to his feet shouting,
"Now then, my lads. All together!"

We came up all standing and let 'em go. It was about fifteen yards
to Fritz, and that is easy to a good bomber, as my men all were. A
yell of surprise and fright went up from the trench, and they
started to run. We spread out so as to get room, gave them another
round of Millses, and rushed.

The trench wasn't really a trench at all. It was the remains of a
perfectly good one, but had been bashed all to pieces, and was now
only five or six shell craters connected by the ruined traverses.
At no point was it more than waist high and in some places only
knee high. We swarmed into what was left of the trench and after
the Heinies. There must have been forty of them, and it didn't take
them long to find out that we were only a dozen. Then they came
back at us. We got into a crooked bit of traverse that was in
relatively good shape and threw up a barricade of sandbags. There
was any amount of them lying about.

The Germans gave us a bomb or two and considerable rifle fire, and
we beat it around the corner of the bay. Then we had it back and
forth, a regular seesaw game. We would chase them back from the
barricade, and then they would rush us and back we would go. After
we had lost three men and Lieutenant May had got a slight wound, we
got desperate and got out of the trench and rushed them for further
orders. We fairly showered them as we followed them up, regardless
of danger to ourselves. All this scrap through they hadn't done
anything with the machine guns. One was in our end of the trench,
and we found that the other was out of commission. They must have
been short of small-arm ammunition and bombs, because on that last
strafing they cleared out and stayed.

After the row was over we counted noses and found four dead and
three slightly wounded, including Lieutenant May. I detailed two
men to take the wounded and the Lieutenant back. That left four of
us to consolidate the position. The Lieutenant promised to return
with relief, but as it turned out he was