The following is from a letter written by one of the Connaught Rangers and printed in _The Evening News_: "Sure, and it was the grand time we had entirely, and I wouldn't have missed it for lashings of money. It was near to Cambrai when we had our best time. The Germans kept pressing our rearguard all the time, and at last we could stand it no longer, so the word was passed round that we were to give them hell and all. They kept pressing on and on in spite of our murderous fire until there was at least five to one, and we were like to be cut off. With that up got the colonel. 'Rangers of Connaught,' says he, 'the eyes of all Ireland are on you this day, and I know you never could disgrace the old country by letting Germans beat you while you have arms in your hands and hearts in your breasts. On, then, and at them, and if you don't give them the soundest thrashing they ever got in their lives you needn't look me in the face again in this world or the next.' And we went for them with just what you would know of a prayer to the Blessed Mother of our Lord to be merciful to the loved ones at home if we should fall in the fight. We charged through and through them until they broke and ran like frightened hares in terror of the hounds. They screamed just like babies. After that taste of the fighting quality of the Rangers they never troubled us any more that day, but next day more of them came up, and managed to cut off half a company of our boys holding a post on our left. The German officer rushed off to Tim Flanagan, the biggest caution in the whole regiment, and called on him to surrender the file of men under his orders. 'Is it me your honour's after talking to in that way?' says Tim, in that bold way of his. 'Sure, now, it's yourself that ought to be surrendering, and if you're not off this very minute, you ill-mannered German omadhaun, it's me will be after giving you as much cold steel as'll do you between this and the Kingdom of Heaven.' Then the German officer gave the word to his men, and what happened after that I can't tell to you, for it was just then I got a bullet between my ribs; but I can tell you that neither Tim nor any of his men surrendered, nor did the Germans get that position until it pleased the colonel to order the retirement." The Connaught Rangers, however, were not the only soldiers who revelled in a fray. Here is what even a sensible English soldier wrote in reference to a battle: "At 12.30 a shell hit my rifle and smashed it to matchwood. I next got my cap knocked off my head, and I went to pick it up. Then I got a bullet in the muscle of my right arm, which put me down for a couple of hours. But, never mind, my dear, I had a good run for my money."