Later, when things had quietened down, we got on the move again, and presently, after a longish crawl through barbed wire, reached the parapet, and were just about to slide in, side by side, pretty glad to be back in the trench, when a fellow came round the traverse--we were just beside a traverse--growled something, and jabbed at Slade with his bayonet. Bit confusing, wasn't it? Makes you think pretty quick. I suppose we realised we had struck the Boche line instead of our own in something under the twentieth part of a second, and what followed was too confused for me to remember much about. No doubt we both recognised the necessity for keeping that chap quiet in the same fraction of time that we saw we had reached the wrong trenches. I can remember the jolly feeling of my two thumbs in his throat. It was jolly, really, though I dare say it will seem beastly to you. And I suspect Slade did for the chap. We were lying on a duck-board at the bottom of the trench, and I know my little trench dagger fell and made a horrid clatter, which I made sure would bring more Boches. But it didn't. I am sorry to say I left the little dagger there, but I collared the Boche's rifle and bayonet, thinking that was the only weapon I had, and clean forgetting the two Mills bombs in my pockets. Slade was a perfect brick and behaved all through like the man he is. We were anxious to make tracks without unnecessary delay, but, being there, thought we might as well have a look at the trench. We crept along two bays without hearing or seeing a soul. And then we heard a man struggling in deep mud and cursing in fluent German. I've thought since, perhaps, we ought to have waited for him and tried a bomb on him. But at the same time came several other different voices, and I whispered to Slade to climb out and followed him myself without wasting any time. The trench was a rotten bad one at this point, worse, I think, than any of ours. And I was thankful for it, because if it had been good those Boches would surely have been on us before we could get out. As it was, the mud held them, and the noises they made grovelling about in it prevented them from hearing our movements, though we made a good deal of noise, worrying through their wire, especially as I was dragging that Boche rifle, with bayonet fixed.