As soon as dusk fell on Sunday, September 22nd, the platoons were assembled under full equipment, and we started. The guides didn’t appear, and it was fortunate we had been up before. Several times I thought I had lost my way, and was leading the two companies into the German lines. Trying to keep in touch with the man ahead while blundering through those woods, laden down with rifle and equipment, tripping over logs, roots and barbed wire, slipping in the mud; occasional shells bursting to remind us that any noise would be disastrous, and, of course, a nice rain falling--I’ve been on lots of pleasanter walks. At last we came to the old German rest camp, and I knew where we were. Soon we met Capt. Ressiguie, and the sgt. commanding his left platoon took us in tow. The first and third platoons furnished the line of outguards, along the line 368.8-242.4: 368.3-242.8; the first platoon on the right. The second and fourth platoons were the support, and were to organize a strong point at the north of the little strip of woods at 368.1-242.5. Co. Hdq. was established at 368.6-242.4, just off the path through the woods. Only a small part of our sector had been held by H Co., and we had to dig our own bivvies. Our intrenching tools made little headway in the rocky ground, laced with tree roots; and even those who found German picks and shovels made little better progress. The support was somewhat better off, as they had one or two good dugouts and gun pits. By the time all the dispositions were made and inspected it was beginning to get light. There was plenty of German clothing and equipment lying around, and in ten minutes you could have collected enough souvenirs to satisfy even a Paris Q. M. sergeant. The heavy fleeceskin German coats came in especially handy, and the other stuff was good to line our bivvies, though it was soaking wet and smelt most damnably. Hun machine gun ammunition in long canvas belts was scattered around in abundance; and down in the corner of the field on our left was an abandoned field kitchen. Raymond Harris and a couple of battalion runners were running a field telephone up from B. H. Q. to the Co. Hdq. We had crawled into our holes for some sleep, when about 1 P. M. a nasty, shrill little whir like a giant mosquito heralded the arrival of a small one-pounder shell about a hundred meters down the line. It was repeated rapidly, dropping shells right along that path which ran parallel to the outpost line at about twenty-five yard intervals. And to our dismay, we realized that the shells were coming from behind us. Cheery-O had carefully cleaned and oiled his rifle and leaned it up against a sapling at the edge of our hole. The vicious whir came again directly at us, and, as our muscles grew taut against the shock of the explosion, the butt of the rifle suddenly vanished. A moment later Cheery-O scrambled out and returned with a rueful face, bearing his precious rifle, bent neatly at the breech into a right angle.