We stuck the lamp up just behind the pill-box on the top of a bank and flashed it full in the direction of Hell Fire Corner. There was no answer. “Nothing’s going right to-day,” I thought, and the shells were pitching just to our right and inviting retirement to the safe—if damp—recess beneath us. But I was overdue and had not found sign or trace of the infantry. The place might be deserted for all the world, save for our little party. I had one more cast round in various ruined pill-boxes on our side of the slope, and then made up my mind to go forward—east—a little. My Major had told me yesterday that our fellows were digging in in front of the ridge. Perhaps the infantry Colonel was with them. It did not seem very likely, on the forward side of a ridge sloping towards Hunland, but unusual things were done in those days of disorganisation and I had not seen a single infantryman since we left the working-parties behind us early in the morning. Our infantry, if they were not a myth, must be east of me, not west. I left my signallers still flashing vainly and took my orderly with me to the forward slope of the ridge. We stalked down a hedge about 50 yards, then turned due right along another. There was another “pill-box” just half right of us. “That might be them, sir,” said my orderly. We swung sharp right and walked up to it. I saw an unusual helmet. “One of our Tommies decking himself out,” I thought. Then another helmet of the same sort, and the truth flashed on me just as it was too late and we were within a few paces of them, with the pill-box between us and home, covered by a couple of German rifles. A dozen very vivid thoughts raced through my mind. “Somebody’s made the most awful howler.” “I can’t get back.” “Where in thunder were our infantry, then?” “This is the end.” “I haven’t even got a revolver on me.” “Prisoner!—what will they say?” “What the devil _will_ they say?”