Nigg’s allotted task upon this occasion was to “comb out” certain German dug-outs. (It may be mentioned that each man had a specific duty to perform, and a specific portion of the trench opposite to perform it in; for the raid had been rehearsed several times in a dummy trench behind the lines constructed exactly to scale from an aeroplane photograph.) For this purpose he was provided with bombs.  Shortly before two o’clock in the morning the party, headed by Angus M’Lachlan, crawled over the parapet during a brief lull in the activities of the Verey lights, and crept steadily, on hands and knees, across No Man’s Land.  Fifty yards from the enemy’s wire was a collection of shell-holes, relics of a burst of misdirected energy on the part of a six-inch battery.  Here the raiders disposed themselves, and waited for the signal.

Now, it is an undoubted fact, that if you curl yourself up, with two or three preliminary twirls, after the fashion of a dog going to bed, in a perfectly circular shell-hole, on a night as black as the inside of the dog in question, you are extremely likely to lose your sense of direction.  This is what happened to Private Nigg.  He and his infernal machines lay uneasily in their appointed shell-hole for some ten minutes, surrounded by Verey lights which shot suddenly into the sky with a disconcerting plop, described a graceful parabola, burst into dazzling flame, and fluttered sizzling down.  One or two of these fell quite near Nigg’s party, and continued to burn upon the ground, but the raiders sank closer into their shell-holes, and no alarm resulted.  Once or twice a machine-gun had a scolding fit, and bullets whispered overhead.  But, on the whole, the night was quiet.

Then suddenly, with a shattering roar, the feint-artillery bombardment broke forth.  Simultaneously word was passed along the raiding line to stand by.  Next moment Angus M’Lachlan and his followers rose to their feet in the black darkness, scrambled out of their nests, and dashed forward to the accomplishment of their mission.

When Nigg, who had paused a moment to collect his bombs, sprang out of his shell-hole, not a colleague was in sight.  At least, Nigg could see no one.  However, want of courage was not one of his failings.  He bounded blindly forward by himself.

Try as he would he could not overtake the raiding party.  However, this mattered little, for suddenly a parapet loomed before him.  In this same parapet, low down, Nigg beheld a black and gaping aperture—­plainly a loophole of some kind.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Nigg hurled a Mills grenade straight through the loophole, and then with one wild screech of “Come away, boys!” took a flying leap over the parapet—­and landed in his own trench, in the arms of Corporal Mucklewame.

As already noted, it is difficult, when lying curled up in a circular shell-hole in the dark, to maintain a true sense of direction.