only ones left, and we lay there bruised
and shaken. We were pretty well discouraged over the loss of our other
brave lads, and it was quite a while before we felt like venturing out
again; the only redeeming feature was the fact that the shell which had
killed our boys had also cleared the hole of whole Germans. Well, at
last we made another start, and we had almost reached a hole when the
officer, who was behind me, shouted "Look out, lad, there's another
coming!" We leaped for the hole and landed at the bottom only to find
ourselves covered by a dozen German rifles; I sure thought I had a
through ticket for the next world with no "stop-overs" allowed,
especially when I noticed a big "square-head" in the act of bringing a
"potato-masher" (hand grenade) down on my head. I dodged him as he
fetched it down, and just then the German officer in charge of the
bunch bawled out some command. They all lowered their rifles and began
talking in an excited manner, they were evidently trying to decide what
to do with us, and the officer said, "Well, I guess our game is up,
boy." I said, "I guess it is"; and really I didn't much care if they
finished me right then. I knew I had made them pay the price
anyway--we were out of ammunition and, besides, we were too much "all
in" to put up any kind of a scrap.

Well, they evidently decided to take us prisoners, for we were
searched, and then two of them were detailed to take us back--the only
reason we were spared was because it is quite a feather in a German's
cap to take a British officer prisoner--they are always rewarded for
it. Well, they started us out at once over the same road we had come,
and we went from shell hole to shell hole as before, but now that we
were under German escort no one "potted" us, and in spite of the shell
fire we reached what had been "No Man's Land." As we crossed this I
noticed a funny thing. A company of German reinforcements were being
brought up, perhaps a hundred in all; the officer in charge was
bareheaded, and he carried a revolver and a stick of some kind.
Instead of leading his men as our officers do, he walked behind and a
little to one side, really on their flank. They couldn't hear his
commands and he tried to show them where to go by pointing with his
stick, but he kept his revolver levelled on the men all the time. As I
watched them, a couple of our "Big Lizzie" shells burst right over
them; when the smoke cleared away there wasn't