Behind the barrage, driving through No Man's Land towards their objective, went the Canadian battalions. Captain MacDowell reached the German line about fifty yards to the right of the point for which he was aiming; but most of his men, having worked slightly farther to the right, became separated from their leader, who found himself alone with two runners. The German dug-out where he aimed at establishing himself could be seen in the shell-torn line, but there was no time to collect a party to clean the place up. But on the way to his destination MacDowell captured two enemy machine-guns as an aside. He bombed one out of action, then attacked the other. The second gunner did not wait, but ran for shelter to a dug-out whither MacDowell followed and got him. Working their way along to the big dug-out the three Canadians saw that the place was more formidable than they had anticipated. It stretched far underground. MacDowell bawled down the deep passage, summoning the German occupants to surrender. No answer came from out the depths to his demand; but that Germans were down in the underground there seemed no doubt. The captain decided to go down and find out. It was a gigantic game of bluff he was playing, and it succeeded by reason of its very audacity. A flight of fifty-two steps led to the earthen floor below, and down those fifty-two steps went Captain MacDowell. Along a narrow passage he went and then, suddenly, as he turned a corner, which led into the main room of this subterranean fortress, he found himself face to face with a large group of the enemy. There were seventy-seven of them--though he did not know the exact number till afterwards, when they were counted--mostly Prussian Guards. Now, by all the laws of arithmetic and logic Captain MacDowell ought to have been taken prisoner or killed. But he was not out to be governed by the laws of arithmetic or logic. He was out to capture Boches and to kill those he could not capture. Quick as a flash he turned and began to shout orders to an imaginary force behind him--and up went the hands of the seventy-seven stalwart Guards. "_Kamerad!_" they said. It was one thing, however, to accept the surrender of this large party and quite another to get them out of the dug-out, for there was more than a chance that when they discovered there were but three Canadians to look after them they would try to overwhelm their captors. The captain decided to send the Germans up in batches of twelve, and the two runners, Kebus and Hay, marshalled them in the open at the top. Among the prisoners were two officers. What had been expected, once the Germans were marched up into the daylight, occurred. Some of them were furious at the trick which had been played on them and one of them caught up a rifle and shot at one of the Canadians. The rebellion did not last long, for it was checked by quick, drastic measures.