R-ATTACK
A GENERAL ACTION
AT LAST

IN ENEMY HANDS

The last conscious thought in the mind of Private Jock Macalister as he
reached the German trench was to get down into it; his next conscious
thought to get out of it. Up there on the level there were
uncomfortably many bullets, and even as he leaped on the low parapet
one of these struck the top of his forehead, ran deflecting over the
crown of his head, and away. He dropped limp as a pole-axed bullock,
slid and rolled helplessly down into the trench.

When he came to his senses he found himself huddled in a corner against
the traverse, his head smarting and a bruised elbow aching abominably.
He lifted his head and groaned, and as the mists cleared from his dazed
eyes he found himself looking into a fat and very dirty face and the
ring of a rifle muzzle about a foot from his head. The German said
something which Macalister could not understand, but which he rightly
interpreted as a command not to move. But he could hear no sound of
Scottish voices or of the uproar of hand-to-hand fighting in the
trench. When he saw the Germans duck down hastily and squeeze close up
against the wall of the trench, while overhead a string of shells
crashed angrily and the shrapnel beat down in gusts across the trench,
he diagnosed correctly that the assault had failed, and that the
British gunners were again searching the German trench with shrapnel.
His German guard said something to the other men, and while one of them
remained at the loophole and fired an occasional shot, the others drew
close to their prisoner. The first thing they did was to search him, to
turn each pocket outside-in, and when they had emptied these, carefully
feel all over his body for any concealed article. Macalister bore it
all with great philosophy, mildly satisfied that he had no money to
lose and no personal property of any value.

Their search concluded, the Germans held a short consultation, then one
of them slipped round the corner of the traverse, and, returning a
moment later, pointed the direction to Macalister and signed to him to
go.

The trench was boxed into small compartments by the traverses, and in
the next section Macalister found three Germans waiting for him. One of
them asked him something in German, and on Macalister shaking his head
to show that he did not understand, he was signaled to approach, and a
German ran deftly through his pockets, fingering his waist, and,
searching