Until midnight there was a certain amount of moonlight, and for several hours we kept the Boche very busy on our extreme right, where, with a trifling expenditure of ammunition, the guns had cut a lane for us through his barbed wire. I've no doubt at all that Fritz had several machine-guns concentrated on that spot, and a bunch of rifle-men too. He made up his mind he would have the English on toast in that lane, and we encouraged him to think so.
You know, at night-time it is not very easy to tell the difference between the explosion of a hand-grenade and that of a rifle-grenade. But whereas the hand-grenade could only be lobbed in from among the wire, the rifle-grenade could easily be sent over from our trench at that particular spot on our right. So we sent 'em over at all kinds of confusing intervals. And then, when Boche opened machine-gun fire across the lane, under the impression that our bombers were at work there, we replied with bursts of machine-gun fire on his parapet opposite the lane, thereby, I make no doubt, getting a certain number of heads. It is certain they would be looking out, and equally certain they would not be expecting fire from our trenches, when they thought we had our own bombers out there.
It was an attractive game, and we kept it going till nearly midnight. Then we stopped dead, leaving them to suppose we had given up hope of overcoming their watchfulness. We arranged to reopen the ball at 1.30 A.M. precisely, with rifle-grenades and machine-gun fire as might prove suitable, but with no end of a row in any case.
At one o'clock I started from Stinking Sap, on our extreme left, with twelve of our best bombers, each carrying an apronful of bombs. There wasn't a glimmer of any kind of light. We made direct for the S-shaped opening, and lay down outside the wire there. In our own trench, before starting, we had made all arrangements. I had six men on either side of me, and each man knew precisely what his particular job was. "The Peacemaker" never tires of insisting on that principle, and, of course, he is right. Nothing is any good unless it is worked out beforehand so that each man knows exactly his job, and concentrates on that without reference to anyone else, or any hanging about waiting instructions.
At 1.20 we began crawling down the S-shaped opening in our proper order. At 1.30 the first rifle-grenade ripped over from the extreme right of our line. Others followed in quick succession, and on the report of the sixth we jumped to our feet and ran forward, extending to right and left from me as we reached the inside of the wire, and chucking our first bombs—thirteen of 'em—as we got into position. It was so close there was no possibility of missing, and I can tell you thirteen bombs make some show when they all explode beautifully right inside a trench a few yards in front of you.
Then we all scrambled over the parapet down into the trench over a front of, say, thirty paces. The six men on my right hand at once turned to their right, and those on my left to their left. It worked splendidly. Each party travelled along the trench as quickly as it could, bombing over each traverse before rounding it. The row was terrific.
In that order each party went along six successive bays of the trench. Then immediately they began to reverse the process, travelling more slowly this time and bombing more thoroughly. They were working back on their centre now, you understand, still bombing outward, of course. We had the luck to strike a splendid piece of trench with no fewer than three important dug-outs in it, and we made a shambles of each of them. It was wildly exciting while it lasted, but I suppose we were not more than four or five minutes in the trench. We exploded thirty-two bombs during those few minutes, every single one of them with good effect; and when we scrambled out into the S-shaped opening again we took with us an undamaged Boche machine-gun and four prisoners, one of them wounded and three unwounded. We killed nine men in the trench, and a good round number in the three dug-outs. I had a bunch of maps and papers from the first of those dug-outs. And we didn't improve their trench or the dug-outs. Thirty-two bombs make a difference.
The machine-gun hampered us a bit, but I can tell you we made pretty good time getting across to Stinking Sap. The Boches were hopelessly confused by the whole business, and while we were crossing to the extreme left of our own line they were wildly blazing at our extreme right and pouring flares and machine-gun fire over the lane through their wire. Naturally, nobody was in the least exposed on our right, except perhaps the man operating the machine-gun, which probably did good execution among Boche observers of that neat little lane our artillery had cut for us.
It was a delightful show and cost us nothing in casualties, except two men very slightly wounded, one in the right foot and the other in the left hand and arm from our own bomb splinters. But, as our good old bombing Sergeant said, it "fairly put the wind up them bloomin' sauer-krauters." Incidentally, and owing far more to the fine behaviour of the men than to anything I did, it earned a lot of bouquets from different quarters for your
"Temporary Gentleman."