er proved an extraordinary one. An officer of the
engineers attached to the Black Watch, who could speak German, questioned
him. The boy had not the least idea what the fighting was about. He told
the officer that his mother had given him the letter as she felt sure that
the English would be kind to him. She had told him that he should give
himself up at the first opportunity. He was her only son.

We learned from him of preparations for an attack by the Germans at dawn,
which corroborated the information our staff already had. He was treated
very kindly. He seemed very much taken aback at the kind treatment
accorded him, and asked if it was the custom of the English to treat
prisoners kindly before torturing and putting them to death. Upon hearing
this, the officer he was speaking to laughed uproariously for fully a
minute, and the others wanted to know the joke. He told them and some
joined in the laugh. The officer patted the boy on the back; gave him his
letter, telling him at the same time to treasure it; and said that he
would no doubt meet his mother again.

The boy fell upon his knees and tried to kiss the officer's hand, sobbing
like a child. But the officer nearly turned a backward somersault, getting
away from the hand kissing, and swore as if he would eat the lad up.

Sure enough, the next morning the attack came off, but we were prepared
for it. Just at "stand to" before dawn, our artillery opened fire and kept
pounding at them until about eight o'clock; the enemy replying very
vigorously. They attempted to get over their parapet, but gave it up until
about noon. They tried it again. Our artillery opened up on them, and some
forces along our line charged the Germans.

The Black Watch had supports up and were to make a charge at two o'clock
that day, but the sleet came on with an awful wind, and this prevented it.
Instead, the regiment in support came up and took our place in the
trenches. We moved along some distance to the right flank. The sleet and
rain continued, also the wind. We were cold, miserable, and grousing in
good style because we found we had to take another part of the trench,
instead of going, as we thought, to billets. However, we got an extra
issue of rum.

This place was pitted with big shell holes. It looked extremely weird.
One _sigarree_ (fire box with charcoal) was issued to a company, and we
would take our turn in getting warmed up from it. This lasted only a few
days, for very so