Our aid-post is a dug-out covered with steel joists and sand-bags; but it rocks with the swish, swish, swish of the shells flying through the air like hail. Now the Boche begins to reply, and every now and then a 'whiz-bang' bursts on the parapets. We can only hope that no high explosive will happen to break on our dug-out. Now the guns lift, and the raiders get closer up. A frenzy of flares go up, and we are so curious that we sneak out to see across No Man's Land. We cannot see a man of our party, and we take that to indicate that the Huns, too, cannot see them yet.
Now it is 9.10, and on the instant there is a silence as terrible as was the fearful noise. The raiders are among the Germans now. They rush from dug-out to dug-out bombing. Meeting Huns, they fight face to face and hand to hand. German fire breaks out on No Man's Land, and occasionally a rifle shot. Then, 'bad luck to us,' the Hun ceases to engage our guns, and he puts his high explosives on, and just over our parapets. And this is the time we must get out for our work, for casualties soon come back; indeed a message has come to say that two are back. One man who has brought a wounded comrade and himself has suffered a fall, injuring the knee. As we run along the duck-boards behind the parapet we bend low and listen fearfully to the crump, crump, crump of shells exploding behind our line. The raiders have just ten minutes for their fighting. At that time our guns will raise another curtain of fire behind them to keep the Huns from a counter-attack.
They must not stay under our own fire. Now they begin to return, with their eyes bright with the excitement of battle, covered with mud, with a German helmet or two, with many stories of the fighting, and with their wounded. The stretcher-bearers are out in No Man's Land seeking others, and we have enough to do dealing with those at hand. We have got most of them close up to the parapet, and the doctor has difficult work to do under circumstances the reverse of helpful, for German shells are landing in our lines pretty thickly. But when you reach this point in a 'stunt' you cease to think of danger; you are absorbed in helping. The wounded turn to the padre as a friend and almost as a father. They babble of their home folks, give you messages, and they hold your hand tightly when they are in pain. You cannot stay with one longer than is necessary, for others ask for you. 'Ask the padre to come' is something which makes it worth your while to be with the men in battle. One man, not at all young, gives me many loving messages to one whom I took to be his wife. I send them all to Australia, and receive thanks from his mother, who explains that her son was a confirmed bachelor. Another poor chap has a slight wound; but it does not bleed, and he is so cold. We heap blankets and new sand-bags on him and give him stimulants. But he gets colder and colder, and just as the ambulance reaches the billets in the village he dies of shell-shock. The wounded men are put on the trolleys, and the stretcher-bearers begin to push them out of the sector; and while they do so the Huns' shells fall all round. 'But who cares?' That is the feeling you have at this stage. Now we have a bother. Some of the raiders are not easily persuaded to start on the homeward march up the communication trench. The special officer stands, notebook in hand, ticking off the names of the raiders who have returned. In spite of his assurance some want to go back to find chums who are really not lost. Others seek excuses because they want to go back for trophies or booty which they now remember to have seen.
One of our company is still missing, and a wounded man tells me where he has seen him. As a matter of fact, things have quietened down a lot now, and we have virtual possession of No Man's Land; the Huns have hidden. They are satisfied to sprinkle our sector with shells in the hope of getting returning men. But our stretcher-bearers are indignant at the idea of my attempting to get the lost man. Securing my information, they go into No Man's Land and find him. We still have a number of less seriously wounded men behind the parapets. Everybody is talking of the exploits of one of them. He is an athletic fellow whom the doctor is attending. To counterbalance the pain he is suffering I congratulate him, and suggest that he will probably get recommended for reward.
'No fear of that,' he says laughing. 'More likely ten days' C.B.' (confinement to barracks).
'Why?' I inquire.
'Well, I shouldn't have been there at all,' he replies.
'I can't understand that,' I say.
'Well, sir, I'm not a raider at all; but when I heard the shots, I couldn't resist, so I slipped over the parapet and into it.'
It is difficult to tell exactly what success the raid has had; but the men seem to agree that with those they accounted for and Huns they found killed by our artillery fire altogether twenty-five of the enemy were destroyed. We have lost three killed in action, and a number of wounded who will recover. One prisoner has been brought back, and he seems to be a regular walking orderly-room for the number of official documents in his possession. It may be but a small affair; but when we remember that there were twenty-five raids the same night, it will be recognized that we are not sitting down tamely and submitting to the German occupation of any part of France.