On the evening of the second day they went one step further, and threw a
single grenade, received two in return, and remained quiet for the
night. The next morning, the 11th, they threw six more, all short, and
we replied with 10, five of which fell in their trench and apparently
convinced them that we intended war; at any rate they made no more
tentative efforts, but in the afternoon started more or less in earnest.
At 4.45 p.m. they blew up a small mine opposite "A" Company, demolished
a sap-head, and half buried the solitary occupant, who escaped with
bruises only; after this they bombed, or tried to bomb us, until 8-0
p.m., while we replied at the rate of two to one. Unfortunately, the
explosions caused a collapse in our parapet, about 10 yards of which
fell down suddenly, and had to be re-built during the night.

The following night proved to be still more exciting. Soon after
midnight a French sapper, narrowly escaping several sentries who thought
he was a Boche, came running along the line excitedly waving his arms,
and saying: "Mine, mine, faire sauter, demi-heure." No one knew what he
meant, though we gathered a mine would probably go up somewhere in
half-an-hour, whether ours or theirs we had not the least idea.
Eventually he was led to Battalion Headquarters, where he explained that
the French were going to blow a camouflet in half-an-hour. It was
already nearly an hour since he first said this, and nothing had yet
happened, so we hurriedly cleared a small portion of our front line and
waited, while we sent for the Tunnelling Officer. He arrived, and the
"blow" was arranged for 5-0 a.m., at which hour there was a terrific
explosion, a forty-foot crater was formed, and another ten yards of our
parapet fell down. Such an explosion must have been caused by a much
bigger charge than we had laid, so we probably included in our "blow" a
Boche mine laid ready for us. We easily bombed off a party of his which
tried to rush the crater, and spent the day re-building our fallen