interestedly fingering a grey steel helmet with a heavy steel shield or
visor in front of the forehead, evidently meant to be bullet-proof when
the wearer looked over the parapet. The prisoner was murmuring something
like "Durchgeschossen," "Durchgeschossen."

"He says he's shot through," said someone, who understood a little
German.

"Oh, nonsense," broke in a youth; "you were shot through the hand, old
man, but you were not shot there." The prisoner was pointing to his
ribs.

"Oh, you've got a rat," said the youngster, as the man went on pointing
to the same place. But he tore the man's shirt open quickly. "Yes, you
have, sure enough," he exclaimed, showing the small, neat entry hole of
a bullet in the side. "Here, sit down, old man, and take this," he added
tenderly, giving the man a cup of warm coffee, and pressing him to a
chair. The whole attitude had changed to one of solicitude.

It was while the prisoner sat there that we heard about the raid. They
clearly considered it something of a failure. They had to get through a
ditch full of water to their necks, then some trip-wire, then a
knee-deep entanglement, then a ditch full of rusty wire, then some
"French" coils of barbed wire, then more wire knee-deep, with trip-wire
after that. Moreover, the enemy's artillery fire was heavy. They simply
went on over the parapet into the enemy's trench for a few minutes and
killed with their bombs about a dozen Germans, and brought in as
prisoners those who were left wounded. Every man of their own who was
wounded they carried carefully back through the tempest in No Man's
Land. The Germans had spent at least as much artillery ammunition as we