It may be mentioned that only a short time before the Somme Battle was the efficacy of the German apparatus for overhearing telephone conversation realized by the British. Till then it had been our easy custom to talk of such important matters as reliefs over the telephone from the front line. It was established that these casual conversations could be picked up by the enemy's instruments, especially in chalky ground. They were accordingly banned, and, after the British manner, from the extreme of imprudence we rushed to a comical extreme of caution. It was currently believed that all conversations within three miles of the line could be heard by the Germans, and brigadiers sometimes found themselves precluded from using the telephone. It was still possible to send telegraphic messages, using the "fullerphone," an invention which greatly diminished the risk of tapping. And an instrument of torture, known as the "B.A.B. Code Book," became part of the equipment of every officer. How many company commanders have sat in their dug-outs translating a series of numerals into amazing gibberish, to discover that they had wasted half an hour by using last month's correction! On the occasion in question, an officer of the 9th Irish Fusiliers, Lieutenant Godson, conceived the idea of using the listening set of the enemy as a bait to take some of his men. On the afternoon of the 14th of August, he announced in the clearest possible tones, on a telephone at company headquarters in the front line, that an officer and three men would leave the trench at midnight, and move out on the right of the Le Rossignol-Messines Road to reconnoitre the clump of willows in "No Man's Land." At 9-30 p.m. he moved out to this spot with a party of two officers and sixteen other ranks. By 10 he had his force in prearranged formation near the willows, and waited for what might happen. But he must be allowed to tell in his own words, as they were written next morning, the story of his sensations and of his achievement.