Some of the prisoners who are taken do nothing but weep for the first few days after capture. "The prisoners are young," reports the Intelligence officer about the latest batch, "and have wept copiously since their capture." The men I have seen myself during the past few days had a look of misery in their eyes. They hate these midnight raids of ours, coming suddenly upon them night after night through the white glimmer of the snowfields. They have taken dogs into the trenches now to give a quicker and surer warning than young sentries, who are afraid to cry out when they see white figures moving, because they think they see them always, when shadows stir in the moonlight across the snow. Our men during recent nights have heard these dogs giving short, sharp barks. One of them came out into No Man's Land and sniffed about some black things lying quiet under the cover of snow. No alarm was given when some friends of mine went out to make an attack some nights ago, and it was lucky for them, for if they had been discovered too soon all their plans would have been spoilt, and white smocks would not have saved them.
They were the 8/10th Gordons of the 15th Division. Some of my readers will remember the crowd, for I have described my meetings with them up and down the roads of war. It is they who arranged the details of the night's adventure, and because it is typical of the things that happen--of the Terror that comes in the night--it is worth telling. The Highlanders, when they took up their attacking line, were dressed in white smocks covering their kilts, and in steel helmets painted white. Their black arms and feet were like the smudges on the snow. They lay very quiet, visible on the left, from the Butte de Warlencourt, that old high mound in the Somme battlefields which was once the burial-place of a prehistoric man and is now the tomb of young soldiers in the Durham Light Infantry who fought and died there. The moon was bright on the snow about them, but a misty vapour was on the ground. Each man had been warned not to cough or sneeze. Their rifles were loaded, and with bayonets fixed, so that there should be no rattle of arms or clicks of bolts. They were in two parties, and their orders were to overthrow the advanced German posts which were known to be in front of the Butte, and to form a ring of posts round the position attacked while its dug-outs were being dealt with. A heavy barrage was fired suddenly up and down the German lines, so as to bewilder the enemy as to the point of attack, and the Gordons in their white smocks rose up and advanced. Two shots rang out from one of the German posts. No more than that. The two waves of men went on. Those on the right flank had trouble in crossing the ground. Several of them fell into deep shell-craters frozen hard. A machine-gun was fired on the left, but was then silenced by our shell-fire. The men inclined a little to the left, and came round on the west side of the position, where there was a small quarry. On their way they surprised an enemy post and took six prisoners.