One day I went down the trench which led into Fampoux. Whizzbangs were falling every now and then, so the men were keeping low. At one place there was a good view of the German lines. An officer and a sergeant stood there looking through their glasses and pointed out to me a spot in the hillside opposite where we could see a number of the enemy. They came out of one trench, crossed the road, and went down into another. The officer told me that he had counted over a hundred that day. I asked him why he did not telephone to Battalion Headquarters to inform the artillery. He told me he had no telephone. Then I said, "Why don't you send a runner?" He explained that Fampoux was occupied as an outpost, and that no runners were allowed to be sent from there during the daytime; orders to this effect being very strict. "I am not a runner," I said, "and I am not in your Battalion. If you will give me the map-location of the place where you think the Germans are (p. 250) congregating, I will take it back with me to the liaison officer at Battalion Headquarters." He was very pleased with my offer, because at this time we were daily expecting a big attack upon our lines. To get back we had to crawl down a steep place in the trench, which was in view of the Germans, until at last we reached the cellar of a ruined house which the O.C. of the company used as a billet. He got out his maps and gave me the exact location of the road and trenches where the Germans had been seen to pass, and where apparently they were massing. I got him to write down the map-location carefully on a piece of paper, and then, armed with this and feeling very important, I started back, this time avoiding the trench and going up the Fampoux road on the side of which there was some torn and broken camouflage. I came across a steel helmet by the wayside with part of a man's head in it, and the road had been pretty well battered by shells, but I felt exceedingly proud at being able to do something which might possibly avert an attack upon our men. I went on till at last I saw in the hillside the beginning of a trench, and made my way up this to Pudding lane and found Battalion Headquarters. The Artillery officer had been having a quiet time and was delighted at the prospect of ordering a "shoot." At once he telephoned back to the brigade, and not long after, when the quiet sun was setting in the West, a most terrific bombardment of artillery, both field and heavy, smashed the German trenches on the hill opposite. The headquarters men and I looked over the valley and saw the line of bursting shells. Much to their amusement, I told them that this was my music, that I had ordered the shoot. I felt like the fly on the axle of a cart, who said to his companion fly, "Look at the dust we are making."