We are back again in billets, but so close to the line this time that it's more like being in support trenches. That is to say, one hears all the firing, and knows just what is happening in the line all the time. Also, we do carrying fatigues in the trenches at night. Still, it's billets, and not bad. One can get a bath, and one can sleep dry. I must tell you about billets sometime. At the moment the letter from you lying in front of me contains clear orders. I am to tell you what patrolling is—quite a big order.

Well, there are many different kinds of patrols, you know, but so far as we are concerned, here in trenches, they boil down to two sorts: observation patrols and fighting patrols, such as bombing and raiding parties. It's all night work, of course, since one cannot do anything over the parapet by day without getting shot; anything, that is, except a regular attack preceded by bombardment of the Boche lines. On the whole, I think it's about the most interesting part of our work, and I think it's safe to say it's a part in which our fellows can run rings round the Boches. In masses (well primed with rum; ether and oxygen, too, they say) the Boche can do great things. He will advance, as it were blindly, in the face of any kind of fire you like; even the kind that accounts for sixty or seventy per cent. of him in a hundred yards. But when he comes to act as an individual, or in little groups, as in patrolling—well, we don't think much of him. We think our worst is better than his best in all that sort of work. I'm perfectly certain that, man for man, the British and French troops are more formidable, harder to beat, better men all round, than the Boche.

The first kind of patrol I mentioned—observation—is part and parcel of our everyday routine in the firing line. This kind goes out every night, and often several times during the night, from every Company. Its main objective is observation: to get any information it can about the doings of the Hun, and to guard our line against surprise moves of any sort. But, though that's its main object, it does not go unarmed, of course, and, naturally, will not refuse a scrap if the chance comes. But it differs from a bombing or raiding patrol in that it does not go out for the purpose of fighting, and as a rule is not strong, numerically; usually not more than about half a dozen in the party. In some Companies observation patrols are often sent out under a good N.C.O. and no officer. We make a point of sending an officer always; not that we can't trust our N.C.O.'s; they're all right; but we talked it over, and decided we would rather one of us always went. As I said, it's interesting work, and work with possibilities of distinction in it, and we're all pretty keen on it. Every Company in the Battalion is. (Boche patrols, one gathers, hardly ever include an officer.)

With us, it is decided during the afternoon just what we are going to do that night in the patrol line, and the officer whose turn it is chooses his own men and N.C.O.'s. And within limits, you know, "the Peacemaker" lets us work out our own plans pretty much as we like, providing there's no special thing he wants done. It often happens, you see, that during daylight the sentries or the officer on duty have been able to make out with glasses some signs of work being done at night by the Boche, in his front line, or in a sap or a communication trench. Then that night it will be the job of the patrols to investigate that part of the opposite line very carefully. Perhaps half a dozen Boches will be found working somewhere where our patrol can wipe 'em out by lobbing a few bombs among 'em. That's a bit of real jam for the patrol. Or, again, they may observe something quite big: fifty to a hundred Boches carrying material and building an emplacement, or something of that kind. Then it will be worth while to get back quickly, having got an exact bearing on the spot, and warn the O.C. Company. He may choose to turn a couple of machine-guns loose suddenly on that spot, or he may find it better to telephone to Battalion Headquarters and let them know about it, so that, if they like, they can get our "heavies" turned on, and liven the Boche job up with a good shower of H.E., to smash the work, after a few rounds of shrap. to lay out the workers.

Then, again, if you all keep your eyes jolly well skinned, there's a sporting chance of getting another kind of luck. You may spot a Boche patrol while you're crawling about in No Man's Land. "B" Company had the luck to do that three nights ago, and our fellows are so envious now they all want to be patrolling at once; it's as much as one can do to keep them in the trench. They're simply aching to catch a Boche patrol out, and put the wind up "B." You see "B" lost two out of a Boche patrol of six; killing three and taking one prisoner. "A" can't say anything about it, of course, because we've not had the luck yet to see a Boche patrol. But God help its members when we do, for I assure you our fellows would rather die half a dozen times over than fail to wipe "B's" eye. It's the way they happen to be built. They don't wish the Boche any particular harm, but if they can get within sight of a Boche patrol, that patrol has just got to be scuppered without any possible chance of a couple getting clear. The performance of "B" has just got to be beaten, and soon.

Honestly, it isn't easy to hold these chaps back. The observation patrol I was out with the night before we came out of the trenches really needed holding. There were no Boche patrols for them to scupper, and just to humour the beggars I kept 'em out nearly an hour longer than I had any right to; and then, if you'll believe me, they were so disappointed at having to head back with nothing in the bag, so to say, that the Corporal was deputed to beg my permission for a little raid on the Huns' front trench. And there were just five of us, all told; our only weapons knobkerries and two bombs each, and my revolver and dagger.

By the way, the survivor of the Hun patrol that "B" rounded up was not the first prisoner taken by the Battalion. No; we had that honour nearly a week ago. A queer episode that, on our second night in. There was a bit of line on our extreme right which was neither for use nor ornament; a horrible place. It had been all blown in by trench mortars and oil-cans, and hardly had a strand of unbroken wire in front of it. (You may be sure it's in different shape now. We worked at it for two nights in succession, and made a good job of it.) Well, it was so bad for fifty yards or so that sentries could not occupy it properly; no fire-step left, and no cover worth speaking of. Taffy Morgan was nosing about in front of this bit just after dark, out beyond where the wire had been, marking places for new entanglements, when he spotted a big Boche patrol making slowly up that way from their front. They were fifteen or twenty strong.

Taffy lay very low, and crawled back into our line without being seen. Then he raced down the trench for his pet machine-gun—a Lewis, you know—and got it along there with a Corporal and a couple of machine-gunners in rather less than no time. By then the messenger he had sent off had got back with "the Peacemaker" and myself and the Sergeant-Major. We all kept as quiet as mice till we were able to make out the movement of the Boche patrol. We let them get fairly close—thirty or forty yards—and then let blaze at 'em, firing just as low as we could.

I suppose we gave 'em about four hundred rounds. We heard a bit of moaning after "the Peacemaker" gave the word to cease fire, and then, to our amazement, a Hun talking, apparently to another Boche, telling him to come on, and calling him some kind of a bad hat. I tell you, it was queer to listen to. The Boche who was doing the talking appeared to have worked a good bit down to the left of the bunch we had fired at, and had evidently got into our wire. We could hear him floundering among the tin cans.

"Don't fire," said "the Peacemaker." "We'll maybe get this chap alive." And, sure enough, the Boche began singing out to us now, asking first of all whether we were Prussian, and then trying a few phrases in French, including a continuously repeated: "Je suis fatiguÉ!"

Most extraordinary it was. "The Peacemaker" couldn't tell him we were Prussian, but he kept inviting the fellow to come in, and telling him we wouldn't hurt him. Finally I took a man out and lugged the chap in out of the wire myself. We got tired of his floundering, and I guess he must have been tired of it too, for he was pretty badly cut by it. He had no rifle; nothing but a dagger; and the moment I got him into our trench he began catting all over the place; most deadly sick he was.

We led him off down the trench to the S.M.'s dug-out and gave him a drink of tea, and washed the wire cuts on his face and hands. He was a poor starveling-looking kind of a chap; a bank clerk from Heidelberg, as it turned out afterwards, and a Corporal. He told us he'd had nothing but rum, but we thought him under the influence of some drug; some more potent form of Dutch courage, such as the Huns use before leaving their trenches. Our M.O. told us afterwards he was very poorly nourished. We blindfolded him and took him down to Battalion Headquarters, and from there he would be sent on to the Brigade. We never knew if they got any useful information out of him; but he was the Battalion's first prisoner. The other Boches we got in that night were dead. That burst of M.G. fire had laid them out pretty thoroughly, nine of 'em; and a small patrol we kept out there wounded three or four more who came much later—I suppose to look for their own wounded.

There's a creepy kind of excitement about patrol work which makes it fascinating. If there's any light at all, you never know who's drawing a bead on you. If there's no light, you never know what you're going to bump into at the next step. It's very largely hands-and-knees' work, and our chaps just revel in it. My first, as you know, landed me in the Boche trenches; and that's by no means a very uncommon thing either, though it ought never to happen if you have a good luminous-faced compass and the sense to refer to it often enough. My second patrol was a bit more successful. I'll tell you about that next time. Meanwhile, I hope what I've said will make you fancy you know roughly what patrol work is, though, to be sure, I feel I haven't given you the real thing the way Taffy could if he set out to write about it. He could write it almost better perhaps than he could do it. He's a wee bit too jerky and impulsive, too much strung up rather, for patrol work. My thick-headed sort of plodding is all right on patrol; suits the men first-rate. I suppose it kind of checks the excitement and keeps it within bounds. But you mark my words, our fellows will get a Boche patrol before long, and when they do I'll wager they won't lose any of 'em.

We're going to play a team of "B" Company at football to-morrow afternoon, if the Boche doesn't happen to be running an artillery strafe. We play alongside the cemetery, and for some unknown reason the Boche gunners seem to be everlastingly ranging on it, as though they wanted to keep our dead from resting. We're all as fit and jolly as can be, especially your

"Temporary Gentleman."