It was nearing one o'clock when, returning, we reached the place where our friend the sergeant had left us. Pest looked down the trench toward headquarters, and then down the front line toward the low ground where we had originally planned to go, and where the boys were "busy." Surely things were cleaned up now, and they would be hungry for a bit of chocolate and a strong word. I followed him toward the left, but not without forebodings. There was plenty of noise in front of us, and I was sure that the enemy would not co-operate with the engineers who were restoring our trenches, by refraining from shelling them. The "little ones," three-inch high explosives, were falling not far away; but we were well covered. We crossed the low ground where the boys had suffered so seriously from the gas attack three days before, and then entered the woods, whose tree-trunks bore many new wounds. At the far edge of the woods our progress was completely blocked. Working parties filled the space. All about were the marks of the bloody struggle. Not all the dead had been carried back, but the wounded were either out or had been started toward the rear. There were yet bodies in the barbed wire, hanging like ghastly scarecrows. We emptied our sacks, and right about faced. The firing was steadily increasing, and we hurried our steps. When we came to the place where we had entered the woods, we found our way barred again. Two stretcher parties were resting under the cover of the little ruined forest. One carried the remains of the second lieutenant, who had been killed by a trench mortar; the other bore a wounded German prisoner, a fine-looking, husky Bavarian whose legs had been fearfully mangled. The carriers were worn out; it had been a "busy" morning for them, too. They were within a hundred yards of the point where it was necessary to leave the trench and take to the open. The trench had been so shattered by the shelling that a stretcher could not be carried through it. The light had been growing steadily better, and it was very apparent that German observers, at this point less than two hundred yards away, would quickly spot a party taking to the open. But there was nothing else to do. Pest volunteered to lend a hand, and together we carried the wounded prisoner to the point where with assistance we lifted him to the parapet. The two stretcher parties now started down across the low ground in the open, their burdens shoulder-high, not only for greater ease in carrying, but to give the "kultured" gentlemen across the way a square and open look. The going was heavy. After carrying for perhaps three hundred yards the four of us who had lifted the burden at the parapet were relieved. Pest and I now increased our speed in the direction of battalion headquarters, which were in plain view and not more than a kilometer away as the bird flies.