The Army possessed an extremely capable aerial photography expert, who soon made his deduction, and as he, of course, possessed the photographs of the entire front line system of the Army, it was not long before he had identified that piece of it which the Germans had copied, and on which they were meditating an attack.
There was only one object which could lead them to practise attacks upon so short a length of line. A raid was clearly in contemplation. The expert informed the General Staff of his discovery, and the General Staff informed those who were manning the threatened area. Preparations were made and precautions taken, and, sure enough, the Germans came over, to meet about as hot a reception as even modern war can provide.
As I say, I do not know if this story is apocryphal or not, but if it is, others about our aeroplane photography and its amazing efficiency were common talk in the Army.
Psychologically, going out into No Man’s Land in the dark, especially if you are alone, is a distinctly eerie business. I really have no right to write much about it, as I was only out in front on a few occasions. On one, I remember, I was more frightened than I hope ever to be again. Although the story is personal, as it is against myself there can be no harm in telling it.
I had gone out to a cottage which stood in No Man’s Land. It was pretty dark, and a wild night, and there was, of course, a chance that some German might be in the cottage, which, though heavily shelled, was not entirely smashed.
After listening for a while and hearing no sound, I went in, and on the ground floor there was nothing but the usual mass of rubble and brick. A ladder led up to the second floor, and I climbed up this and began to tip-toe across the floor. One got a good deal of light from the star-shells which were thrown up by the Germans, but in a particularly dark moment I suddenly felt my left leg go from under me. I thought that it had been plucked away by some crouching Hun, or else that I had been hit by some missile—in fact, never did thoughts come quicker or more confusedly! What had really happened was that I had put my leg through the floor, and had got rather a heavy jar. But anything more disagreeable than that moment I have never experienced.
Of course, it is only one of the little incidents that are the hourly lot of those who go out into No Man’s Land, but one’s nerves are on these occasions strung up to a very high pitch.
But, as I say, my experience of No Man’s Land was really so small as to be negligible, for when I was in the line I was sniping or observing all day, and you cannot do that and work at night also.
Crawling out into No Man’s Land in daylight is a very different business, and if there is reasonable cover, it is to my mind more satisfactory to crawl out then, when your life depends on your own skill, than to crawl about in the dark over the bodies of men who have been dead for weeks, and when Chance of the blindest kind absolutely rules the game.
Now, of course, when a patrol is sent out the report handed in should be in a definite and generally accepted form, giving the composition of the patrol.