Small engagements with the enemy all along the line were constantly taking place. Official reports teemed with briefly and baldly told stories such as the following:-- "The following are details of the capture of a German trench to the north of La Bassée on the night of the 3rd-4th January. "Time--8 p.m. January 3rd, 1915. "Artillery--Nil. "Strength of attack--One officer, twenty-five men. "Distance between opposing trenches--150 to 200 yards. "Enemy's trench consisted of a short length of trench which had been dug outwards from a saphead, and which was occupied by one officer and twenty-five to thirty men. (Two sentries.) "Attack--The attack crept forward noiselessly to the trench A A, two German sentries were awake and were bayoneted, the occupants were asleep and were all bayoneted; the officer's head was broken in with the butt end of a rifle--not a shot was fired--some men set to work at once and cut the ground A B, thus flooding the trench A A. [Illustration] "The attackers were only fifteen minutes in the German trench and left the bayoneted Germans in the water, which was then running in from the water ditch. A A was only a short length of trench without wire. "British casualties--One wounded and two missing. The latter may have since returned." Quiet days found many a British soldier hard at work over a French-English "conversation-book." Some of these were hurriedly prepared and of a character truly extraordinary. One such book, made up for the benefit of an industrious young man, contained a question that, translated, ran thus:-- "Q. Where is the cat of my mother's aunt?" "A. No, but the kittens are drowned." In Vermelles, on January 15th, I took a dozen photographs showing the devastation that can be worked by French high explosive shells. Vermelles was an object lesson. Held by the Germans as strongly as any town was held in front of the French position south of the La Bassée canal, trenched and barricaded with wonderful skill, and well supported by a mass of guns, its capture was only effected after weeks of sapping and an artillery bombardment that had up to that time been without parallel. Its ruins held texts for innumerable sermons on the newer strategy of present-day warfare. A French officer of standing had told me that he considered the taking of Vermelles from the Germans a most hopeful sign that the French could take any and all German positions in like manner, if they cared to pay the price in men and ammunition. Geographically, Vermelles was in what was bound to prove a "warm corner." The German thrust westward from La Bassée, with Bethune as an objective, had cost the British Expeditionary Force some of the hardest fighting it had seen.