curly barbed-wire coils while he covered their passage with his one rifle. They were bombed and machine-gunned as they floundered over to the swampy western bank; and it was here that Private Woodcock heard cries for help behind him, returned, waded into the water under bombs and bullets, fished out Private Hilley of No. 3 Company with a broken thigh and brought him safely away. The clamour of this fierce little running fight, the unmistakable crack and yells of the bombing and the sudden appearance of some of our men breaking out of the woods near the German machine-gun emplacement by the river, had given the impression to our front of something big in development. Hence the SOS which woke up the whole touchy line, and hence our final barrage which had the blind good luck to catch the enemy as they were lining up on the banks of the Broembeek preparatory, perhaps, to the advance the St. Julien prisoner had reported. Their losses were said to be heavy, but there was great joy in the Battalion over the return of the missing platoon, less several good men, for whom a patrol went out to look that night in case they might be lying up in shell-holes. But no more were found. (“’Twas a bad mix-up first to last. We ought never to have been that side the dam’ river at that time at all. ’Twas not fit for it yet. And there’s a lot to it that can’t be told.... And _why_ did Moyney not let the men break into their ration? Because, in a tight place, if you do _one_ thing against orders ye’ll do _annything_. An’ ’twas a dam’ tight place that that Moyney man walked them out of.”) They were relieved with only two casualties. The total losses of the tour had been—one officer missing (Lieutenant Manning), one (2nd Lieutenant Gibson) wounded; one man wounded and missing; eighty missing; fifty-nine wounded and seventeen killed. And the worst of it was that they were all trained hands being finished for the next big affair! Dulwich Camp where they lay for a few days was, like the others, well within bombing and long gun-range. They consoled themselves with an inspection of the drums and pipes on the 17th, and received several six-inch shells from a naval gun, an old acquaintance; but though one shell landed within a few yards of a bivouac of No. 2 Company there were no further casualties, and the next day the drums and pipes went over to Proven to take part in a competition arranged by the Twenty-ninth Division (De Lisle’s). They played beautifully—every one admitted that—but what chance had they of “marks for dress” against line battalions whose bands sported their full peace-time equipment—leopard skins, white buckskin gloves, and all? So the 8th Essex won De Lisle’s prize. But they bore no malice, for when, a few days later, a strayed officer and forty men of that battalion cast up at their camp (it was Putney for the moment) they entertained them all hospitably.