As I read some of these sentences, true in every detail as they are, I cannot help smiling. For it was no “bombardment” that took place on our left all day; it was merely the Germans potting one of our trench-mortar positions! And Trafalgar Square was really very quiet, that first time in. But what I notice most is the way in which I record the fall of _individual_ canisters and rifle grenades, even if they were twenty yards away! Never a six days in, latterly, that we did not have to clear Old Kent Road and Watling Street two or three times; and we used to fire off a hundred rifle grenades a day very often, and received as many in return always. And the record of casualties one did not keep. We _were_ lucky, it is true. Once, and once only, after, did “B” Company go in and come out without a casualty. Those first two days in Maple Redoubt, when “everything was quiet,” were the most deceitful harbingers of the future that could have been imagined. “Why long faces?” I could write. The Manchesters had a ruder but a truer introduction to the Bois Français trenches, and especially to Maple Redoubt. For the dug-outs were abominable; not one was shell-proof; and there was no parados or traverse for a hundred and fifty yards. The truth of the matter was that these trenches had been some of the quietest in the line; for some reason or other, when our Division took them over, they immediately changed face about, and took upon themselves the task of growing in a steady relentless crescendo into one of the hottest sectors in the line. On the 22nd of February the Germans raided our trenches on the left opposite Fricourt. They did not get much change out of it. I can remember at least four raids close on our left or right during those four months; they never actually came over on our front, but we usually came in for the bombardment. The plan is to isolate the sector to be raided by an intense bombardment on that sector, and on the sectors on each side; to “lift” the barrage, or curtain of fire, at a given moment off the front line of the sector raided “what time” (as the old phrase goes) they come over, enter the trench, if they can, make a few prisoners, and get back quickly. All the while the sectors to right and left are being bombarded heavily. It was this isolating bombardment that our front line was receiving, while we were left unmolested in 71 North. All this I did not know at the time. Here is my record of it. “25 Feb., 1916. It is snowing hard. We are in a very comfortable tubular dug-out in 71 North. This dug-out is the latest pattern, being on the twopenny-tube model; very warm, and free from draughts. It is _not_ shell-proof, but then shells never seem to come near here. Let me try and record the raid on our left on the 22nd, before I forget it.