I hasten to add that this was the only dugout in which such luxury as this existed, or anything approaching to it. This cellar had one other advantage. It still had enough of the walls and roof standing to allow us in spare moments to look through the holes made by shells and see what was happening in No Man's Land. And on one occasion the writer stood up there and watched every detail of one of the most successful raids ever put on by a battalion on the British front. It was a cold winter's day, and the ground had a complete covering of snow. Just at daybreak a box barrage was put on a part of the German line on our front. Our men climbed out of the trenches, and apparently at their leisure went across to the German lines. One of the men carried a telephone with wire coiled about it which he unrolled as he went, and Major R----, M.C., telephoned back to H.Q. in our lines that all was proceeding well. They returned with one hundred prisoners, at that time a record number for a raid. The boy, aged twenty, who had carried the telephone coolly rewound his wire, and brought phone and wire back with him, getting a bullet in the thigh, but finishing his work, and later receiving a military medal for his conduct. I was called down from this interesting sight to dress him and some others of our wounded, as well as many German wounded who were brought in prisoners. For those who are unacquainted with barrages, it may be explained that a box barrage is a heavy shelling put on the enemy lines in the form of a box, taking in the front line and some of the supports in such a manner that those within it cannot get back and reinforcements are unable to come up from the rear. The enemy are then dependent upon shell, and machine-gun, and trench mortar fire in retaliating. We obtain the identification of the troops opposite by the prisoners taken, as well as getting from them in different ways information useful to us and detrimental to the enemy. Of course the enemy employs like methods, but during the winter of 1916-17 on our different fronts we positively owned No Man's Land. CHAPTER X THE SICK PARADE