A soldier invalided home told of this mixture of play with work, or of work with play. "I got my wound in a fight that you will never hear of in official despatches, because it was a little affair of our own. It was what you might call a night attack. We had some leisure in our position along the Aisne, and there was a little village near our lines where we used to go for a bit of a lark. One night, coming back--there were about ten of us--we were surprised to find a light in an empty farmhouse, and were still more surprised to find sounds of revelry coming out through the window. We peeped in, and there were about fifty Germans drinking and eating and smoking, and generally trying to look as if they were having a jolly old time. A dare-devil of an Irishman suggested that we ought to give the Germans a little surprise, and we were all in with him. Doing our best to look fierce and create the impression that we had at least a brigade behind us, we flung open the door without any ceremony. Our first rush was for the passage, where most of the Germans had stacked their rifles, and from there we were able to cover the largest party in any one room. They were so taken aback that they made very little resistance. The only chap who showed any fight was a big fellow, who had good reason to fear us, for he had escaped the day before after being arrested as a spy. He whipped out a revolver, and some of his chums drew swords, but we fired into them, and they threw up their hands, after one had sent a revolver bullet through my arm. We fastened them up securely, collected all the smokes and grub they had not touched, and marched them off to the camp." A soldier wrote: "One day last week we were on the move, and were about as hungry as men could be, when we came on a party of Uhlans just about to sit down to a dinner, which had been prepared for them at a big house. They looked as if they had had too much of a good time lately, and wanted thinning down, so we took them prisoners, and let them watch us enjoying their dinner. They didn't like it at all, and one of them muttered something about an English pig. The baby of the troop asked him outside to settle it with the fists, but he wasn't having it. After the best dinner I've had in my life we went round to where the Uhlans had commandeered the supplies, and offered to pay, but the people were so pleased that we had got the food instead of the Germans that they wouldn't hear of payment." On another occasion Uhlans were driven out of their "supper room" by a small body of our cavalry. They left a finely-cooked repast of beefsteaks, onions and fried potatoes all ready and done to a turn, with about fifty bottles of Pilsener lager beer, which was an acceptable relish. It was as good as a play when some of our soldiers were looking at and wishing for walnuts, and a German shell came and knocked them off the tree for them.