In that order each party went along six successive bays of the trench. Then immediately they began to reverse the process, travelling more slowly this time and bombing more thoroughly. They were working back on their centre now, you understand, still bombing outward, of course. We had the luck to strike a splendid piece of trench with no fewer than three important dug-outs in it, and we made a shambles of each of them. It was wildly exciting while it lasted, but I suppose we were not more than four or five minutes in the trench. We exploded thirty-two bombs during those few minutes, every single one of them with good effect; and when we scrambled out into the S-shaped opening again we took with us an undamaged Boche machine-gun and four prisoners, one of them wounded and three unwounded. We killed nine men in the trench, and a good round number in the three dug-outs. I had a bunch of maps and papers from the first of those dug-outs. And we didn't improve their trench or the dug-outs. Thirty-two bombs make a difference. The machine-gun hampered us a bit, but I can tell you we made pretty good time getting across to Stinking Sap. The Boches were hopelessly confused by the whole business, and while we were crossing to the extreme left of our own line they were wildly blazing at our extreme right and pouring flares and machine-gun fire over the lane through their wire. Naturally, nobody was in the least exposed on our right, except perhaps the man operating the machine-gun, which probably did good execution among Boche observers of that neat little lane our artillery had cut for us. It was a delightful show and cost us nothing in casualties, except two men very slightly wounded, one in the right foot and the other in the left hand and arm from our own bomb splinters. But, as our good old bombing Sergeant said, it "fairly put the wind up them bloomin' sauer-krauters." Incidentally, and owing far more to the fine behaviour of the men than to anything I did, it earned a lot of bouquets from different quarters for your "_Temporary Gentleman_." P.S.--Next day's report as served up to you and the public in the newspapers at home would, of course, and rightly enough no doubt, include our sector in the "remainder of the Front," which was "quiet." Or we might be included in a two-line phrase about "minor activities," or "patrols were active on various points of the line"--as they certainly are all the time. THE SPIRIT OF THE MEN