"strafe" us with rifle grenades, and there was some mining reported in
H 4. This was a small salient; and was held by about forty men under
Capt. Medcalfe.

On the evening of October 8th about six p.m. we were all chatting
together, some papers from home had been received by some of the boys
and we were discussing the names of the newly formed 36th Battery,
when all of a sudden there was quite an explosion on our right. The
Germans had blown up several small mines. Capt. Medcalfe at once gave
the order to "stand to," but before I had time to get my rifle and
equipment, the ground trembled and rocked beneath us and everything
went up into the air. The explosion took away fully half of H 4
trench, and left a crater about 10 feet deep. Those of us who were
lucky enough to escape without being wounded managed, I don't know
how, to make our way into H 3 trench. Fortunately for us the enemy
was very erratic in his artillery fire. It was all going between our
second and third line trenches and consequently did no damage. This
was our first real bombardment, and quite naturally we all felt more
or less "shaky"--I know I said my prayers that night as I never said
them before! The papers had it that the Germans got into our trenches
and that we drove them out again. Such a thing never happened. They
made an attack on us, but our artillery, rifle and machine gun fire
caught them in "No Man's Land." By a happy coincidence the West
Lancashire Artillery was just relieving the 7th Battery of Artillery
and we had the support of both of them, and, believe me, they sure did
some wonderful work.

Our front line officers, such as MacRae, Logan, MacKenzie, Tupper,
Roberts, Johnson and others, were all out on the job; unfortunately
the same cannot be said of headquarters. As I was merely a private at
the time I do not know just what really transpired; but we never saw
the colonel at all that night. About four the next morning the major
came and paid us a visit when we had a new parapet built. The Germans,
however, failed to get into our trenches; and up to this day the 25th
can with perfect truth declare that they never failed in the critical
hour, for if we did not always have competent officers at the head of
the battalion we certainly had them in our companies. Following this
action we were marched out of the trenches for a rest, and prior to
going back again, we were visited by General Alderson, who gave us a
pretty severe lecture.