The second night we were in the front line trenches I received orders that I was to make the raid that night.
I gave the sergeant the necessary instructions to have the men prepared and ready to leave our line at one A.M. Part of the instructions were that the men were to have their faces blackened and a small white chalk mark on the front of their steel helmets. On the back of each man was a small piece of bright tin about two inches in diameter, fastened on their tunic.
Notices had been sent to the units on our flanks that a raiding party was going out at one A.M.
Two hours' time was allowed us to accomplish this. I took my compass bearings and at one A.M. led the boys in single file through our barbed-wire entanglements into No Man's Land.
The German barbed-wire entanglements were about two hundred and fifty yards away from us. I headed right for where I estimated the opening in the German wire entanglements would be.
As the German flares went up we would try to get into shell holes if possible before they burst. We were not very conspicuous as long as they were bursting ahead of us. The great danger of being observed was when the flares burst behind us.
Our progress over No Man's Land was very slow. Not a word was spoken. I signalled back as pre-arranged to my boys by throwing small clods of earth to the man in rear who passed back the signals to those behind him.
In a previous counterattack the Huns had lost this part of No Man's Land. The result was that quite a number of German dead lay on this particular sector unburied. This was due to the continual artillery activity on both sides.
As we reached the middle of No Man's Land, I raised my head carefully above the lip of a shell hole while a German white flare was up. To my consternation I saw what was evidently a German battle patrol coming crouching through their barbed-wire. I counted in all twenty-five men.
Things looked ominous for my party, as they outnumbered us over two to one. I had no desire to go back, without accomplishing my mission. Neither did I wish to engage my men in personal conflict with such odds against them. So I sent my scout with a message to the officer who was on duty in our sector of the line and informed him what I had observed. At the same time I asked him to pass the word along to open up a machine gun fire at a point that would get the approaching Hun battle patrol.