some of the German prisoners with whom I spoke
the day before. They had told me that for three or four days no water
could be brought to them up their communication trenches owing to the
British bombardment.

I expect that the garrison of Fricourt had been almost entirely in those
dug-outs during the bombardment. The chambers seemed to have more than
one entrance in some cases, and one suspects they also led into one
another underground. A subterranean passage led forward beneath the
parapet to a door opening into No Man's Land--you could see the daylight
at the end of it.

The fire trench was battered in places out of recognition. But here and
there we came across a bay of it which the bombardment had left more or
less untouched. There were slings of cartridges still hanging against
the wall of the trench. There were the two steel plates through which
they had peered out into No Man's Land, the slits in them half covered
by the flap so as just to give a man room to peep through them. There
was the machine-gun platform, with a long, empty belt still lying on it.
There was the periscope standing on its spike, which had been stuck into
the trench wall. It looked out straight across No Man's Land, but both
mirrors were gone.

As we picked our way through the brick heaps there came towards us a
British soldier with fixed bayonet, and an elderly bareheaded man. The
elderly man's hair was cut short, and was grizzly. He had not shaved for
three days. He was stout, but his face had a curious grey tinge shot
through the natural complexion. His lips were tightly compressed. He
looked about him firmly enough, but with that open-eyed gaze of a wild
animal which seemed to lack all comprehension. It was the face of a man
almost witless. He wore the uniform of a German captain.

He was one of the men who had been through that bombardment.

CHAPTER XIV

THE RAID

_France, July 9th._

During the first week of the battle of the Somme the Anzac troops far to
the north, near Armentieres, raided the German trenches about a dozen
times. Here is a sample of these raids.

We were late. For some reason we had decided to watch this one from the
firing-line. We had stayed too long at Brigade Headquarters getting the
details of the night's plan. Just as we hurried out of the end of the
communication trench into the dark jumble of the low sandbag
constructions which formed this part of the firing-line, there came two
bangs from