Our aid-post is a dug-out covered with steel joists and sand-bags; but it rocks with the swish, swish, swish of the shells flying through the air like hail. Now the Boche begins to reply, and every now and then a 'whiz-bang' bursts on the parapets. We can only hope that no high explosive will happen to break on _our_ dug-out. Now the guns lift, and the raiders get closer up. A frenzy of flares go up, and we are so curious that we sneak out to see across No Man's Land. We cannot see a man of our party, and we take that to indicate that the Huns, too, cannot see them yet. Now it is 9.10, and on the instant there is a silence as terrible as was the fearful noise. The raiders are among the Germans now. They rush from dug-out to dug-out bombing. Meeting Huns, they fight face to face and hand to hand. German fire breaks out on No Man's Land, and occasionally a rifle shot. Then, 'bad luck to us,' the Hun ceases to engage our guns, and he puts his high explosives on, and just over our parapets. And this is the time we must get out for our work, for casualties soon come back; indeed a message has come to say that two are back. One man who has brought a wounded comrade and himself has suffered a fall, injuring the knee. As we run along the duck-boards behind the parapet we bend low and listen fearfully to the crump, crump, crump of shells exploding behind our line. The raiders have just ten minutes for their fighting. At that time our guns will raise another curtain of fire behind them to keep the Huns from a counter-attack.