I found both the lad’s legs had been carried off by a shell. But he had torn his shirt to strips and saved his life by making tourniquets for his severed limbs. But he had lost his water bottle and his emergency rations, and had been suffering horribly in his place of concealment in the parapet. How he had remained undiscovered there by the Germans for three days is a marvel, save that, of course, he was concealed from sight in the parapet and it had been his good fortune that no German had been sent to take station in that particular parapet. It would have been more fortunate for the poor lad if he had died at once. For after all his agony, he was to die on the stretcher that was bearing him back to the field hospital on our first line. We did take eight prisoners whom we found huddled in a bay. But these were wounded men. They were Bavarians. They told me there had been great dissatisfaction among them against the merciless rigors of discipline and cruelty practiced by their officers, that several times outbreaks had been imminent, but a stern order had been posted threatening instant death to one out of every twenty of them to be picked indiscriminately for slaughter at the first signs of revolt. We had no time to consolidate the trench and its traverses, and hold against a counter attack for the Germans were back at us with reinforcements, the worst feature of which was a preponderance of machine guns. We had no chance of standing out successfully against it, so I ordered my men out and into No Man’s Land. For a while it looked as if they were going to smash us all the way back to our own lines. They sent up their star-shells only fitfully, and as we crawled and stumbled back into No Man’s Land, I thought for a moment all was over with us indeed, thought we had been cut off and surrounded. For out of the darkness came the rush of scores of men. They almost carried us off our feet. “Who’s there?” I demanded, but not expecting anything but a bomb for my trouble. To my great relief, though, the response came: “Anzacs!” “Oxfords and Bucks!” I yelled back joyfully. “Who’s commanding?” “Lieutenant Foster. For God’s sake, is that you, Dave Fallon?” “Foster of Sydney!” I cried earnestly. For Foster had been one of my pupils at the Royal Military School of New South Wales--a splendid young chap and one of my most intimate friends. We groped our way to each other in the darkness and fairly hugged each other. “Fancy!” said Foster, “meeting in this hell-hole!” The sweep of fire was growing more intense, more deadly. A dozen of our men were dropped. We decided to hold on together. Had we attempted to dig in against that storm we would have been wiped out.