for hours right under the noses of
the Germans cutting a gap for our boys to go through--I assure you it
was ticklish work; the success of the whole enterprise depended on
their skilful, silent work. The slightest noise, cough, or sneeze,
would mean their own death and the failure of our plans, but nothing
happened and they had everything ready at the appointed time.

The boys who were going over had prepared for it as they would for a
vaudeville; they all had their faces blackened so they could know one
another in the dark, and they were all allowed to arm themselves in any
way they wished. Some carried revolvers, others the handles of our
entrenching tools (these had small iron cog wheels at one end and they
made an excellent shillalah), a few had bombs, and one of the boys,
Macpherson was his name, armed himself with the cook's meat axe.

Finally the long looked for moment arrived--the whistle blew and over
they went--Lieutenant MacIntyre was in charge of the 28th boys. The
wire cutters were the closest and they reached the trenches first--poor
Conlin was shot as soon as he showed himself on the edge of the
parapet, but MacIntyre got the man who shot him and they fell together.
A little farther along the trench Macpherson was lying on the edge of
the parapet just ready to jump in when a German came running along the
trench shouting "Alarm! Alarm!" Mac leaned over, grabbed him by the
shoulder, and said, "Here, sonny, that's a hell of a noise you are
making," and with that he brought his meat ax down on his head. The
boys were all in now, clearing up the Huns in great shape, and when the
whistle sounded the few that were alive were brought back as prisoners.

While this was going on in the German trenches there was great
excitement in our own. Our trench mortar was being worked
energetically to keep back any German reinforcements. Lieutenant
"Spud" Murphy was in charge of this, and his antics kept us all in
roars of laughter--he jumped around and "rooted" for those bombs as
though they were his favourite players in the National League. When
one went over, he would, like the rest of us, jump up on the
firing-step to see it light. When it lit fairly in the German trench
he would dance around the gunner shouting, "That's a good one!"
"That's the way to put them over!" "Now for another beauty! give them
hell!"

Well, our raid was a great success, and it was the biggest thing of the
kind that had been attempt