prise. In one sector I had trip wires in No Man's
Land connected with buzzers in our own trench so arranged that I would
know if there were any one out there and to within fifty yards of where
they were. But this was only possible on a quiet front where there was
no actual offensive taking place, and not many shells falling in No
Man's Land. I even placed buttons in the German wire so as to be sure
that our patrols did not just go outside our own trench and lie in a
shell-hole until it was time to return, for they had to signal by
pressing these buttons at intervals. They had to repair any of these
wires they found severed, and this somewhat elaborate scheme was the
means of our capturing some German patrols and gave us entire control
of No Man's Land.

We also took advantage of every possible means to make Fritz's sentries
jumpy. We would have our snipers on certain days smash all their
periscopes. I myself have shot down sixty in an afternoon when the sun
was shining on them. This made them afraid that they would not have
any left for emergencies and gave them a wholesome respect for our
shooting so that they were very shy of exposing themselves. We would
also set a rifle to fire exactly into a loophole so that when it opened
we had only to pull the trigger to send a bullet through the brain of
the man using it. There were other dodges that it is not wise to speak
of just yet.

This may be a good place to describe the two kinds of raids. In a raid
with artillery support the artillery cut out a sector of the enemy
trench with a "box barrage" which means that they fire on three lines
of a square leaving the open side for our troops to enter. They also
put a barrage on this side until the prearranged moment when the
attackers go forward. This leaves the raiders to deal with the troops
within that box preventing any others coming in to support them. The
weakness of this method is that it lets the whole German line know what
we are doing, and the raiding-party frequently gets cut up badly by the
enemy's artillery when they are returning across No Man's Land.

The most successful raid is always the silent one if you have
dependable troops. The chief obstacle is the enemy wire, but
beforehand the artillery can cut this in many places, and machine-guns
can be ranged on these gaps to prevent their being repaired. The enemy
does not know, even if he suspects a raid, exactly where it will come.
It is even a goo