A short rest, then on again, this time up a shallow communication trench and then out behind a low-lying parapet. Three or four huge Bavarians lay with faces to the stars; they had been hurriedly laid to one side by our leading files. The fitful light of the flares intensified the mute horror of the fallen jaw and the unspeakable terror of the dead faces. Still, such sights now failed to move us, and with but a perfunctory glance we passed on. Here we waited in silence for the word. What an hour of mental agony. The steady hammer, hammer of the light guns, the monotonous bass muttering of the heavies, the shrill, hysterical crackle of machine gun and rifle and the shrieking and cracking of bursting shells seemed to sing hell's requiem to us poor mortals waiting. My God! that waiting. At such a time man's trivial thoughts sink into utter oblivion and the naked soul shows bare. Apparently calm and indifferent, yet filled with a fear, the like of which no one except those who have waited as we waited can understand, we listened for the word. --------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: READY FOR A RAID ON THE ENEMY'S TRENCHES. THE RAIDING PARTY GOING TO "GIVE 'EM HELL."] --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Over and at them," and the next thing I remember I was plunging forward through the mud of No Man's Land. On each side of me men were falling, cursing, praying and gasping, but unscathed I went on, two things mingling queerly in my head: One was the words of a doggerel song we sang on the march, Wash me in the water that you wash the dixies in And I shall be whiter than the whitewash on the wall, and the other, a dull wonder why I was not killed. After an "eternity" of plunging forward, we, a pitiful few, reached our objective, the Huns hurriedly leaving, that is those of them who had not joined their comrades in hell. Still our work was not yet done. The ground had been won, but to take it is one thing, to hold it another, and with all our officers gone and sixty per cent of the men, we must work to consolidate. Just as I seized a sandbag full of earth to place in front of me, I felt a stinging smack on my ankle, as though I had been kicked. I turned to curse the man who I thought had kicked me and then I fell over with a scream of pain. My left foot was smashed completely by a soft-nosed bullet.