This raid was Stanway’s revenge. He organized it with the colonel; the colonel was the Third Battalion adjutant who had originally sent me out to France. The raid was elaborately planned, with bombardments and smoke-screen diversions on the flanks. A barrage of shrapnel shifted forward and back from the German front line to the supports. The intention was that the Germans at the first bombardment should go down into the shell-proof dug-outs, leaving only their sentries in the trench, and reappear as soon as the barrage lifted. When it came down again they would make another dash for the dug-outs. After this had happened two or three times they would be slow in coming out at all. Then, under cover of a smoke-screen, the raid would be made and the barrage put down uninterruptedly on the support and reserve lines to prevent reinforcements. My only part in the raid, which was successful, was to write out a detailed record of it at the colonel’s request. It was not the report for divisional headquarters but a page of regimental history to be sent to the depot to be filed in regimental records. In my account I noted that for the first time for two hundred years the regiment had reverted to the pike. Instead of rifle and bayonet some of the raiders had used butchers’ knives secured with medical plaster to the end of broomsticks. This pike was a lighter weapon than rifle and bayonet and was useful in conjunction with bombs and revolvers. An official journalist at headquarters also wrote an account of the raid. The battalion enjoyed the bit about how they had gone over shouting ‘Remember Kitchener!’ and ‘Avenge the _Lusitania_!’ ‘What a damn silly thing to shout,’ said someone. ‘Old Kitchener was all right, but nobody wants him back at the War Office, that I’ve heard. And as for the _Lusitania_, the Germans gave her full warning, and if it brings the States into the war, it’s all to the good.’