line were indulging in that most common of frontal
diversions--the raid.

I was a party to one of these affairs on the Toul front. The 26th
Division, composed of National Guard troops from New England, made the
raid. On Memorial Day, I had seen those men of the Yankee Division
decorating the graves of their dead in a little cemetery back of the
line. By the dawning light of the next morning, I saw them come trooping
back across No Man's Land after successfully decorating the enemy
positions with German graves.

It was evening when we dismissed our motor in the ruined village of
Hamondville and came into first contact with the American soldiers that
had been selected for the raid. Their engineers were at work in the
street connecting sections of long dynamite-loaded pipes which were to
be used to blast an ingress through the enemy's wire. In interested
circles about them were men who were to make the dash through the break
even before the smoke cleared and the debris ceased falling. They were
to be distinguished from the village garrison by the fact that the
helmets worn by the raiders were covered with burlap and some of them
had their faces blackened.

In the failing evening light, we walked on through several heaps of
stone and rafters that had once been villages, and were stopped by a
military policeman who inquired in broad Irish brogue for our passes.
These meeting with his satisfaction, he advised us to avoid the road
ahead with its dangerous twist, known as "Dead Man's Curve," for the
reason that the enemy was at that minute placing his evening
contribution of shells in that vicinity. Acting on the policeman's
suggestion, we took a short cut across fields rich with shell holes. Old
craters were grown over with the grass and mustard flowers with which
this country abounds at this time of year. Newer punctures showed as
wounds in the yellow soil and contained pools of evil-smelling water,
green with scum.

Under the protection of a ridge, which at least screened us from direct
enemy observation, we advanced toward the jagged skyline of a ruined
village on the crest. The odour of open graves befouled the sheltered
slope, indicating that enemy shells had penetrated its small protection
and disturbed the final dugouts of the fallen.

Once in the village of Beaumont, we followed the winding duckboards and
were led by small signs painted on wood to the colonel's headquarters.
We descended the stone steps beneath a