However, one night, when, anticipating a surprise attack, the eyes of those on watch were straining into the blackness which enveloped them, the heavy silence was broken by a shout from the enemy's line, followed by rapid rifle-firing; then all sounds ceased. For three hours an officer of the battalion, followed by a sergeant, nervously patrolled his position. At intervals they climbed to the parapet and peered long into the darkness, conversing in low tones. Then, just before dawn broke blue in the east, there was a challenge from a sentinel, followed by a low reply from the gloom outside and shortly over the parapet into the trench crawled a dark shape. A half-frozen, mud-caked figure, with a crimson blotch smearing the neck of his sweater, stood before the captain.
"Are you hit hard, Lecroix?" Captain Booth asked anxiously. "We thought they had got you."
"Eet bleed beeg, but ees only leetle t'ing, seer. I lessen by dere trench, but many men camp dere. Eet was no good." And, shaking his head regretfully. Private Lecroix ran a calloused thumb over the razor edge of the long knife he carried lashed to his left wrist by a thong. "Wen I grow ver' cold," he continued, "and tak' de back trail, dey hear me and shoot."
During the following nights the Germans were heard digging, and shortly they occupied a new listening post a stone's throw from the Canadian lines. Following this discovery. Private Lecroix was observed putting the finishing touches on the edge of a second long knife, borrowed from a company cook in
