We went up to the trenches that night. They were high-command trenches; because water was struck when one dug down three feet, the parapet and parados were built up man-high. I found my platoon curt and reserved. Even when on sentry-duty at night they would never talk confidentially about themselves and their families like my platoon in the Welsh Regiment. Townsend, the platoon-sergeant, was an ex-policeman who had been on the reserve when war broke out. He used to drive his men rather than lead them. ‘A’ company was at Red Lamp Corner; the front trench broke off short here and started again further back on the right. A red lamp was hung at the corner, invisible to the enemy, but a warning after dark to the company on our right not to fire to the left of it. Work and duties were done with a silent soldier-like efficiency quite foreign to the Welsh. The first night I was in trenches my company commander asked me to go out on patrol; it was the regimental custom to test new officers in this way. All the time that I had been with the Welsh I had never once been out in No Man’s Land, even to inspect the barbed wire. In the Welsh Regiment the condition of the wire was, I believe, the responsibility of the battalion intelligence officer. I never remember any work done on it by C Company. I think we left it to the Royal Engineers. When Hewitt, the machine-gun officer, used to go out on patrol sometimes it was regarded as a mad escapade. But with both battalions of the Royal Welch Fusiliers it was a point of honour to be masters of No Man’s Land from dusk to dawn. There was not a night at Laventie that a message did not come down the line from sentry to sentry: ‘Pass the word; officer’s patrol going out.’ My orders for this patrol were to see whether a German sap-head was occupied by night or not.