“‘If you are willing,’ said Major Lewis, ‘I wish you to select twenty-five men from the company and go after that gun the minute the order comes to advance. Use your own judgment about the men and the plan for taking the gun position. Will you go?’ “‘Yes, sir,’ I answered. ‘I’ll go and pick out the men right away. I think we can make those fellows shut up shop over there.’ “Good boy!’ he said. ‘You’ll try, all right.’ “I started away. He called me back. “‘This is going to be a bit hot, McClintock,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘I wish you the best of luck, old fellow—you and the rest of them.’ In the trenches they always wish you the best of luck when they hand you a particularly tough job. THE SAME TO YOU “I thanked him and wished him the same. I never saw him again. He was killed in action within two hours after our conversation. Both he and my pal, Macfarlane, were shot down dead that morning. “When they called for volunteers to go with me in discharge of Major Lewis’s order the entire company responded. I picked out twenty-five men, twelve bayonet men and thirteen bombers. They agreed to my plan, which was to get within twenty-five yards of the gun emplacement before attacking, to place no dependence on rifle fire, but to bomb them out and take the position with the bayonet. We followed that plan and took the emplacement quicker than we had expected to do, but there were only two of us left when we got there—Private Godsall, No. 177,063, and myself. All the rest of the twenty-five were dead or down. The emplacement had been held by eleven Germans. Two only were left standing when we got in. “When we saw that the gun had been silenced and the crew disabled, Godsall and I worked round to the right about ten yards from the shell-hole where we had sheltered ourselves while throwing bombs into the emplacement and scaled the German parapet. Then we rushed the gun position. The officer who had been in charge was standing with his back to us, firing with his revolver down the trench at our men who were coming over at another point. I reached him before Godsall and bayoneted him. The other German who had survived our bombing threw up his hands and mouthed the Teutonic slogan of surrender, ‘Mercy, _Kamerad_,’ My bayonet had broken off in the encounter with the German officer, and I remembered that I had been told always to pull the trigger after making a bayonet thrust, as that would usually jar the weapon loose. In this case I had forgotten instructions. I picked up a German rifle with bayonet fixed, and Godsall and I worked on down the trench.