"For an hour and a half we waited for his return, expecting each minute to hear the confounded patrol and machine-gun making the familiar declaration that 'We will not have it.' So keen were the sentries that even when relieved they would not leave their posts. After an hour had passed, Mr. Ervine's sergeant, getting impatient, went over the parapet and crawled to our wire so as to see better. Punctually at a quarter to three a German star-light went up, and by it we could see a dark form making in our direction. In five minutes it reached our wire, and in ten it was over the parapet. The Germans had been caught napping. In less than half an hour, while the spoiler of the Huns stood by in the crude garb of a Highlander in trench boots--for he had fallen into a ditch full of water on the way and we bring no change of clothing to the trenches--another officer and myself had erected a flagstaff in a firing-bay and nailed to it was the German ensign, while ABOVE it floated a green flag with the harp which had been presented to our company before we left home. And so we ushered in St. Patrick's Day!" Captain Davey proceeds-- "Proudly the green banner floated out, while, of course, we flattered ourselves that the black, white and red of Prussia hung its head in shame below. It was not long before the Germans showed that they were wide awake at last, and the bullets began to sing about our newly-erected monument to Ireland and Ireland's patron saint. But it was a stout flagstaff, and though dozens of bullets struck it, nothing short of a shell could have shifted it. And there it stood all day with the Green above the Black, White and Red. It was no longer a case of 'Deutschland' but of 'Ireland Uber Alles.' I don't know if any similar sight has been seen in a British trench. I know the green flag has led Irish troops to victory in this war, but I think this is the first time the spectacle has been seen of the Irish ensign hoisted above a captured German flag. At any rate the spectacle was sufficiently novel to cause us to have admiring visitors all day long from other parts of the line." Unfortunately there is a sad pendant to this story of St. Patrick's Day at the Front. Lieutenant Ervine, the gallant hero of the exploit, died from wounds.