"You know the trench which the infantry took yesterday? Well, we were there. We went up at dark to fix barbed wire in front of it ready for the counter-attack. We were out in No Man’s Land for about two hours, working as swiftly and silently as we could. Whenever the enemy sent his lights up, we laid down, and so far we had escaped notice and were congratulating ourselves that the work was nearly done, and that our skins were still whole. Then, somehow, the Germans spotted us, and let fly. It was like hell let loose. We ran to the trench for shelter, but it seemed as if nothing could save us from such a deluge of shells. It was just like being naked in a driving snow-storm. We felt as if there was no trench at all, and as if the gunners could see us in the dark. After that experience I can pity a hare with a pack of hounds after it. But we just sat tight with such cover as we had and made the best of it. There was nothing else to do. If we were to be killed, we should be killed. Nothing that we could do would have made any difference. Yet, though there didn’t seem shelter for even a mouse, only one of us was hit, and that was the sergeant. He was rather badly ’done in,’ and we could only save his life by getting him quickly to the dressing station. [Illustration: "HE WAS RATHER BADLY DONE IN" _Drawn by F. Matahia for The Sphere, London_] "I am one of the taller and stronger men of my platoon so, of course, I volunteered as a stretcher-bearer. There was no communication trench, so we had no choice but to lift him up and make a dash across the open. They were shelling us like blazes, but we dare not delay because, if we were overtaken by daylight, it would be impossible to get him away till the next night, and by that time he would be dead. So we decided to try our luck. We had just lifted him up when a shell burst right on top of us, and knocked us all down. For a minute or two I was unconscious, and when I came round I thought I must surely be wounded, so I ran my fingers over my body but found neither blood nor a rent in my clothes. I was covered with chalk but that didn’t matter. Except for a touch of concussion in the brain I was none the worse, and soon pulled myself together. The sergeant was a sight! He was half-buried, and we could scarce see him for chalk; but we dug him out and got him on the stretcher again. After that we sat down in the bottom of the trench till the effect of the shock had worn off a bit, for we all felt like rats that had been shaken by a terrier.