It was now that I lost a very old chum of mine, a fine chap from Newcastle named Layden, a private. He was in the thick of the machine-gun fire, a few paces from me, when he suddenly cried out and I knew that he was hit. The first thing he said was, “Give me a cigarette. I know I shan’t go on much longer.” When we asked him what the matter was he said he was hurt. “Are you wounded?” he was asked. “Yes, I’m hit in the stomach,” he answered--and he was, by about seventeen bullets. The call went round for a cigarette, but nobody had one--lots of cigarettes were sent out to the soldiers that never reached them--but poor Layden was soon beyond the need of fags. He was delirious when our stretcher-bearers came and took him to a barn which had been turned into a temporary hospital. He lingered there for some time; but the last I saw of him was on the field. I missed him badly, because we had been good chums, and whatever we got we used to give each other half of it. For about five hours, until two o’clock in the afternoon, that part of the battle went on, and all the time we were holding the Germans back; then we were reinforced by the remainder of our troops, who came across the pontoon bridge to our assistance. The Germans now seemed to think that they had had enough of it and they held up white flags, and we left the shelter of the wood and went out to capture them. I should think that there were about three hundred of the Germans at that point who pretended to surrender by holding up the white flag; but as soon as we were up with them their people behind fired at us--a treacherous trick they practised very often. In spite of it all we managed to get the best part of the prisoners safe and drove them in before us to our own lines. When they really surrendered, and did not play the white flag game, we used to go up and take all their rifles, bayonets and ammunition, and throw them away out of their reach, so that they could not make a sudden dash for them and turn on us. When we had chased a few prisoners and had seen what the Germans meant by the white flag signal, we were told to take no notice of it, but to keep on shooting till they put their hands up. A lot of the prisoners spoke English and said how glad they were to be captured and have no more fighting to do. Some said they loved England too much to want to fight against us, and a German said, “Long live King George, and blow the Kaiser!” But I don’t know how many of them meant what they said--you can’t depend on Germans.