mall skirmishes, from
which my battalion came out well, and although, during the winter of
1915-1916, things could not be described as lively, a great deal of
useful work was done.

Then something took place which bade fair to put an end to my
activities for the duration of the war, and which calamity was averted
in what I cannot help describing now as a miraculous way. I need not
go into the matter at length; it was a little affair as far as I was
concerned, but was intended as a preliminary to something far more
serious, but of which I had no knowledge. It was on a dark night, I
remember, and my work was to raid a bit of the Boches' trenches, and do
all the damage possible. Preparations had been carefully made, and as
far as we could gather, everything promised success. I had twenty men
under my command, and early in the morning, about an hour before
daylight, we set out to do it. Everything seemed favourable to our
enterprise. The German searchlights were not at work, and the bit of
No Man's Land which we had to cross did not seem to be under enemy
observation.

I was given to understand that my little stunt was only one of several
others which was to take place, and so, although naturally our nerves
were a bit strung up when we crawled over the parapets, we did not
anticipate a difficult job.

As a matter of fact, however, the Boches had evidently been warned of
our intentions, and had made their plans accordingly. We were allowed
to cross the No Man's Land, which at this spot was about three hundred
yards wide, and were nearing the place from which we could commence
operations, when, without warning, a number of the enemy attacked us.
The odds were against us at the very start; they had double our
numbers, and were able to take advantage of a situation strongly in
their favour.

Evidently some one on our side had either conveyed information to them,
or their Intelligence Department was better served than we imagined.
Anyhow, there it was. Instead of entering their trenches, and taking a
number of prisoners, we had the worst of it. Still, we made a good
fight, and I imagine their losses were greater than ours, in spite of
their superiority of numbers. Most of our fellows managed to get away,
but I was not so fortunate. Just at the first streak of dawn, I found
myself a prisoner; while four of the men whom I had brought suffered a
similar fate.

It was no use my trying to do anything, they out-numbe