strode down the hill, skirting shell-holes and jumping over communication trenches, for I wasn’t in a mood to bother about going along wet ditches. The landscape loomed around me, and the landscape was life, stretching away and away into freedom. Even the dreary little warren at 71. North seemed to await me with a welcome, and Flook was ready with some hot tea. Soon I was jabbering excitedly to Durley and old man Barton, who told me that the Doctor said Mansfield was a touch and go case, but already rejoicing at the prospect of getting across to Blighty, and cursing the bad wire-cutters which had been served out for the raid. I prided myself on having pulled off something rather heroic; but when all was said and done it was only the sort of thing which people often did during a fire or a railway accident.
Nothing important had happened on the British Front that night, so we were rewarded by a mention in the G.H.Q. communiqué. “At Mametz we raided hostile trenches. Our party entered without difficulty and maintained a spirited bombing fight, and finally withdrew at the end of twenty-five minutes.” This was their way of telling England. Aunt Evelyn probably read it automatically in her Morning Post , unaware that this minor event had almost caused her to receive a farewell letter from me. The next night our Company was in the front-line and I recovered three hatchets and a knobkerrie from No Man’s Land. Curiously enough, I hadn’t yet seen a German. I had seen dim figures on my dark patrols; but no human faces.