A minute and a quarter later the shells started coming over. We heard the clash of downed tools and distant shouts and cries; we reckoned the probable casualties. The next morning at stand-to Buzz Off came up to me: ‘I hear you were on patrol last night?’ I said: ‘Yes, sir.’ He asked me for particulars. When I had told him about the covering party he cursed me for ‘not scuppering them with that revolver of yours. Cold feet,’ he snorted as he turned away. One day while we were here the Royal Welch were instructed to shout across to the enemy and induce them to take part in a conversation. The object was to find out how strongly the German front trenches were manned at night. A German-speaking officer in the company among the brick-stacks was provided with a megaphone. He shouted: ‘Wie gehts ihnen, kamaraden?’ Somebody shouted back in delight: ‘Ah, Tommee, hast du den deutsch gelernt?’ Firing stopped and a conversation began across the fifty yards or so of No Man’s Land. The Germans refused to say what regiment they were. They would not talk any military shop. One of them shouted out: ‘Les sheunes madamoiselles de La Bassée bonnes pour coucher avec. Les madamoiselles de Béthune bonnes aussi, hein?’ Our spokesman refused to discuss this. In the pause that followed he asked how the Kaiser was. They replied respectfully that he was in excellent health, thank you. ‘And how is the Crown Prince?’ he asked them. ‘Oh, b——r the Crown Prince,’ shouted somebody in English, and was immediately suppressed by his comrades. There was a confusion of angry voices and laughter. Then they all began singing the ‘Wacht am Rhein.’ The trench was evidently very well held indeed. XV This was the end of August 1915, and particulars of the coming offensive against La Bassée were beginning to leak through the young staff officers. The French civilians knew that it was coming and so, naturally, did the Germans. Every night now new batteries and lorry-trains of shells came rumbling up the Béthune-La Bassée road. There were other signs of movement: sapping forward at Vermelles and Cambrin, where the lines were too far apart for a quick rush across, to make a new front line; orders for evacuation of hospitals; the appearance of cavalry and new-army divisions. Then Royal Engineer officers supervised the digging of pits at intervals in the front line. They were sworn not to say what these were for, but we knew that they were for gas-cylinders. Scaling ladders for climbing quickly out of trenches were brought up by the lorry-load and dumped at Cambrin village. As early as September 3rd I had a bet with Robertson that our division would attack on this Cambrin-Cuinchy sector. When I went home on leave on September 9th the sense of impending events was so great that I almost wished I was not going.