On January 5th the Germans attacked along the whole forest front, and took more than 1800 prisoners. We alone had captured 700 men of the French infantry regiment No. 120. The hand to hand fighting lasted till six o'clock at night. On that day I, together with another sapper, got into a trench section that was still being defended by eight Frenchmen. We could not back out, so we had to take up the unequal struggle. Fortunately we were well provided with hand grenades. We cut the fuses so short that they exploded at the earliest moment. I threw one in the midst of the eight Frenchmen. They had scarcely escaped the first one, when the second arrived into which they ran. We utilized their momentary confusion by throwing five more in quick succession. We had reduced our opponents to four. Then we opened a rifle fire, creeping closer and closer up to them. Their bullets kept whistling above our heads. One of the Frenchmen was shot in the mouth; three more were left. These turned to flee. In such moments one is seized with an indescribable rage and forgets all about the danger that surrounds one. We had come quite near to them, when the last one stumbled and fell forward on his face. In a trice I was on him; he fought desperately with his fists; my mate was following the other two. I kept on wrestling with my opponent. He was bleeding from his mouth; I had knocked out some of his teeth. Then he surrendered and raised his hands. I let go and then had a good look at him. He was some 35 years old, about ten years older than myself. I now felt sorry for him. He pointed to his wedding ring, talking to me all the while. I understood what he wanted--he wanted to be kept alive. He handed me his bottle, inviting me to drink wine. He cried; maybe he thought of his wife and children. I pressed his hand, and he showed me his bleeding teeth. "You are a silly fellow," I told him; "you have been lucky. The few missing teeth don't matter. For you the slaughtering is finished; come along!" I was glad I had not killed him, and took him along myself so as to protect him from being ill-treated. When I handed him over he pressed my hand thankfully and laughed; he was happy to be safe. However bad the time he might have as prisoner he would be better off at any rate than in the trenches. At least he had a chance of getting home again.