that Siegfried had then distinguished himself by taking single-handed a battalion frontage that the Royal Irish Regiment had failed to take the day before. He had gone over with bombs in daylight, under covering fire from a couple of rifles, and scared the occupants out. It was a pointless feat; instead of reporting or signalling for reinforcements he sat down in the German trench and began dozing over a book of poems which he had brought with him. When he finally went back he did not report. The colonel was furious. The attack on Mametz Wood had been delayed for two hours because it was reported that British patrols were still out. ‘British patrols’ were Siegfried and his book of poems. ‘It would have got you a D.S.O. if you’d only had more sense,’ stormed the colonel. Siegfried had been doing heroic things ever since I had left the battalion. His nickname in the Seventh Division was ‘Mad Jack.’ He was given a Military Cross for bringing in a wounded lance-corporal from a mine-crater close to the German lines, under heavy fire. He was one of the rare exceptions to the rule against the decoration of Third Battalion officers. I did not see Siegfried this time; he was down with the transport having a rest. So I sent him a rhymed letter, by one of our own transport men, about the times that we were going to have together when the war ended; how, after a rest at Harlech, we were going for a visit to the Caucasus and Persia and China; and what good poetry we would write. It was in answer to one he had written to me from the army school at Flixécourt a few weeks previously (which appears in _The Old Huntsman_). [Illustration:SOMME TRENCH MAP Martinpuich Sector _Copyright Imperial War Museum._] I went for a stroll with Edmund Dadd, who was now commanding A Company. Edmund was cursing: ‘It’s not fair, Robert. You remember A Company under Richardson was always the best company. Well, it’s kept up its reputation, and the C.O. shoves us in as the leading company of every show, and we get our objectives and hold them, and so we’ve got to do the same again the next time. And he says that I’m indispensable in the company, so he makes me go over every time instead of giving me a rest and letting my second-in-command take his turn. I’ve had five shows in just over a fortnight and I can’t go on being lucky every time. The colonel’s about due for his c.b. Apparently A Company is making sure of if for him.’