In April 1917 two companies of our battalion were ordered to make a big
raid opposite the sugar refineries at 14 Bis, near Loos. Two lines of
enemy trenches had to be taken and the raiding party, when finished,
were to go back to billets at Mazingarbe while the Durhams took over
our trenches.
My batman Beedles had instructions to go back to billets with all my
kit, and wait there for my return. I was in charge of the right half of
the first wave of the raid, and after a bit of a scrap we got into the
German front line.
Having completed our job of blowing up concrete emplacements and
dug-outs, we were waiting for the signal to return to our lines when,
to my surprise, Beedles came strolling through the German wire. When he
saw me he called out above the row going on: "I 'opes yer don't mind me
'aving come to the garden party wivout an invertition, sir?"
The intrepid fellow had taken all my kit back to billets some four
miles, made the return journey, and come across No Man's Land to find
me, and see me safely back; an act which might easily have cost him
his life.--_L. W. Lees (Lieut.), late 11th Batt. Essex Regt., "Meadow
Croft," Stoke Poges, Bucks._