How we got out of that trap I don’t know, but out we came, every man of us, in spite of the fire that swept us. Our hands and faces were torn and bleeding from the barbed wire, our clothing ripped to shreds. But these splendid men of mine took the fight straight at the Boches. It was just plain hand-to-hand fighting--trench knife clashing against trench knife, revolvers and rifles blazing directly into one another’s faces. My gratitude can never abate toward that little company of superbly brave men I led in the Delville woods that day. For time and again they drew around to protect me. They recognized that the Boches were seeking to make a special mark of me. For a long time British officers had given up the practice of going into action in uniforms bearing the special insignia of their rank. The only indication of that now is on the identification tab that hangs on an officer’s neck. But, of course, at such close quarters, the Germans readily observed that I was in command and their instructions are always emphatic on that point--“kill officers first.” A big fellow named Morrison--in spite of the confusion of the fight I swiftly, sharply noted the spectacle--had actually gone wild with rage. He attacked a huge Boche with tremendous fury and literally hacked the man to pieces with his trench-knife. And when his enemy went down, Morrison turned with a terrible leer on his countenance, made crimson by spurting blood from a big gash in his forehead. “There, sir,” he yelled exultantly, “there’s a fine piece of German sausage for you!” The Germans turned tail and we carried on through the woods, keeping in touch with the platoons on our right and left by means of “piles,” that is, men set out at certain intervals to find out the positions of the people on our flanks so that we might not be surrounded and cut off from the main body. Our artillery in the meantime was sending out its heavy stuff and shrapnel well ahead of us, trying to cut off reinforcements of the Germans. Our objective we knew to be a knoll of considerable height and length some two hundred and fifty yards through the woods from the scene of our first encounter. The Australians had tried to capture the woods two weeks before and were rent, torn and sent reeling back when they had edged their way through the forest to this knoll. For on it the Germans had built a strong position of sunken concrete houses thoroughly equipped with field artillery and machine guns. And their axes had effected a clearing in the woods surrounding this position. An attacking contingent was therefore forced into the open before their guns.