The Americans are great fighters, they will tell you, and add as an afterthought that they are "bad moppers-up." "Mopping-up" is practically a new operation in battle, and if not altogether new it has come into great prominence in this war, especially when the enemy is retreating. The track of the flying Boche is a track of snares, pitfalls, toils, traps, hidden mines and all manner of treacherous contrivances which a cunning enemy can lay to kill his pursuers. The dug-out may conceal a machine gun, the apparently dead may be waiting for a chance to fire at the troops which have passed him by, the elbow of trench may conceal a sniper, so all suspicious objects have to be examined before being crossed over. But the Americans, I understand, don't waste time in dealing with little affairs like these. Full of the call of battle they rush forward to get right into the thick of the struggle. Their business is in front where the fighting is hardest, and they do not care to linger in dug-outs and trenches apparently disbanded and deserted. "They're bad moppers-up," the Australian repeated. "But they're great fighters, these Yanks." It was in this district near Hamel that heavy fighting took place last summer, when the grass and self-sown crops stood high on the field of battle. Here the Australians adopted a certain kind of guerilla warfare, which kept the Germans in continual suspense and which greatly helped the forward penetration of the attackers. For certain periods no direct frontal attack was opened in force, but during the time the Diggers did not remain inactive. Patrols stole out through the long grass, crawling to certain localities occupied by the Boche, sunken roads, valleys, shell-holes and ruins of farmhouses. Here at various points were many encounters in which bomb and bayonet were used and in this way many nests were cleared of the enemy. Platoons and squads adopted these tactics on their own bent, stealing ground bit by bit from the Germans. Even solitary soldiers, working on their own initiative, did a lot towards chasing the enemy back. Stories of deeds accomplished by Diggers, the capturing of dug-outs, the rushing of machine-gun positions are spoken of, but as the Australian is one of the most modest of men, many stories of desperate deeds and high enterprise will never be known beyond the limits of camp and the field of war. At various points along the route the officer conducting our party told us of various incidents, comic and sublime, which had taken place on the wide field of the Somme. Here it was the story of a one-armed Captain who went into an attack at the head of his platoon, carrying only a walking stick. Leading his men on the tail of a barrage and holding them back when they pressed too close to the bursting shells, he regulated the line with his stick like the conductor of an orchestra.