Where we were posted was a hot shop, and for a week the Germans had been treating us to night attacks. It was long past our time for standing treat in return, and we weren’t surprised one night when we were paraded and marched out in the direction of where the Germans had been firing from all day. In the pitch darkness it was slow work, and the men had to be halted every few minutes to enable the guides to take their bearings from the few stars that were overhead. By three o’clock we were resting on a slight slope leading up from a stream, when the scouting parties ahead reported movements in front. A few minutes after that we stumbled right on top of a big body of Germans stealing along as quietly as we had come, and evidently trying a surprise attack on our camp. You can bet your last half-crown that we didn’t wait to ask if their intentions were honourable. We just shot right into them, and the ball was opened in fine style. Before they had time to think what was happening, we had fixed bayonets and were charging down on them. We swept them off their feet and right down the other side of the slope in confusion: _A Lance-Corporal of the Cameron Highlanders_. “Talk About Excitement!” It was like going to a football match, cracking jokes and singing all the ragtimes we knew. All our fellows knew what depended upon the result, and that only made them the more determined. But it was determination in the best of spirits. And how our fellows did fight, with always a joke handy and utter fearlessness. The Germans looked like a forest approaching, but that didn’t daunt us, and our artillery replied to theirs with interest. For hour after hour it was one continuous stream of shot and shell. Their artillery was the best part about them, their individual firing being poor, but our artillery was far better, though their biggest guns created the most havoc among our ranks. Talk about excitement, it was all excitement from the beginning and during the retirement. There was nothing else for us to do. It was a rare hot time. We were working for concentration the whole time, and there is no doubt about it, our orders were the best possible under the circumstances. The Germans were making a mark of us all along, but directly we got our chances we let them have it: _A Private, at Mons_. Balaclava Style