ehind us, we got up to our feet.

We proceeded very cautiously, round the many little mounds, stumbling
through shallow ditches, and crawling over the higher spots.

"Y' seem tae hae th' heng o' thees," said Lawson, as he stumbled and
crawled behind me. "Ah'll dae ma' best tae follow your lead. It's a braw
new beesness tae me." [He was referring to my method of keeping to natural
cover.]

"I've been trained in scouting," I replied. "Just do as I do, and with
anything like luck we'll come out all whole."

Memory took me back to the days I had spent in scouting practice in India,
under Major Bruce, the famous scoutmaster of the 2nd Battalion, Fifth
Gurkhas--forty days, once, from Dunga-Gully up to the borders of Cashmere
and back. Little did I think, in those days, that I'd ever find myself
sneaking my way through the flats of Flanders, hiding from enemies in the
air as well as on the earth.

Now and again we heard a rifle shot--at times quite a distance away; then
again, quite close. Often we'd hear the "swish" until at last, the bullet
found its mark, with a "click."

We must have been out for over two hours, before we neared the German
position. At last we could hear an occasional mumbling of hushed voices,
and make out the dim outline of wire entanglements. The German position
seemed to be on a little plateau.

While we were lying on our bellies, my partner could turn his face and
look at me, but neither of us dared utter a word.

Fifteen minutes seemed like a century. I was more used to it than my
partner, but even at that I must admit that I was as nervous as a man that
is about to have a death sentence pronounced on him. It is the feeling
that possesses every man that patrols "No Man's Land."

I motioned to Lawson, and we crawled away like worms that had been
overlooked by a hungry crow. We reached our trenches quickly after getting
into the broken ground; it was not until we had actually entered them that
he opened his mouth. Then, approaching his friend, Donald, he demanded his
fags. In a whisper, he triumphantly announced that we had been near enough
to hear the Germans talking in their trenches.

I went to our officer and reported.

It was in the morning after "stand down," when our rum issue had been
passed, that we learned what the racket had been the previous night. The
Germans had tried a night attack on the King's Royal Rifles.

The morning was cold and misty. It was easy to see that we were a