My turn comes later when the raid is in full swing; it consists in directing the artillery fire and reporting to the rear what is happening. I consult the illuminated dial of my wrist-watch—five seconds to go. Some battery, which has grown nervous, starts pooping off its rounds. A machine-gunner, imitating the bad example, commences a swift rat-a-tat-tat: Destiny demanding entrance on the door of some sleeping house. In the wall of darkness, as though a candle had been lighted and a blind pulled aside, a solitary flare ascends—then another, then another. North end south, like panic spreading, the illumination runs. With the clash of an iron door flung wide, all our batteries open up. I look behind me; flash follows flash. The horizon is lit up from end to end. The gunners are baking their loaves of death. The air is filled with a hissing as of serpents. Shells travel so thick and fast overhead that they seem to jostle and struggle for a passage. The first of them arrive. So far no eye has followed their flight. Suddenly they halt, reined in by their masters at the guns, and plunge snarling and golden on the heads of the enemy. Where a second ago there was blackness, a wall of fire and lead has grown up. Poor devils! Those who escape the shells will be destroyed by bomb and bayonet. Pity there is none; this is the hour of revenge. We shall take three prisoners, perhaps, in order that we may gather information, but the rest.... Our chaps have to think of their own safety. There is only one company in the raid, consisting of not over a hundred men. They might easily be surrounded. Their success depends on the element of surprise and the quickness of their get-away when they have done their work. If they took too many prisoners they would be hampered in their return. If they left any of the enemy alive behind them, they would be fired on as they retired. So the order is “No quarter and kill swiftly.”