The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-08-14
HUNS CAUGHT TAT CARDS WHEN
 TROOPS RAIDED
Canadians Swoop on Play CTS in Trench Battle :.
 Surprise Attack

Written by Private Robert Norton
 Hooker, of Prince Edwards Island sWhen we pered over the edge of the trench. judge our astonishment oh seeing half-a-dozen Huns having akquiet game of cards
 AYou know the boys are always eager for bit of sport. Raids come to them like a bit of sunshine in the routine of trench duty. That's a fact! They break the monotony. and when word comes that there's one being ar- ranged there's as much eagerness to be in it as there is among kids to get to. a circus. Oh stalking the Hun, assure you. is one of the tit-bits of campaigning out there on the West ern front
 5Pd been in few myself, and all though there had been some stiff scrapping in nearly all of them-once we had a ding-dong bayonet fight in a. corner you couldn't have swung cat in--I was never loath to go back again. These excursions, however, had always been at nighttime, and as my readers have no doubt heard plenty about that style of raid, l won't bother about them. Here's the true story of one conducted in broad daylight-a visit to Holland in all the
 
 Where We scdoped the Prizes
 You may we'll wonder how we would venture out on what looked like a piece of foolhardiness, but as a. matter of fact we had many ad- vantages which I need not detail, ex- cept this. the lie of the land at this particular place favored the approach or attackers, and as the spot in which we were sure some Fritzies would be lying formed a sort of trench pocket or. cuI-dezac of their own system, we felt confident that, with ordinary luck we could get there before the neighboring Huns could do anything to prevent us.
 A Lecturer on Raids
 swell, the day came round, and the Bcore of us selected for the job set out under an officer whom believe the Huns would give something to get hold of as lecturer, to Fritz, on s'How -tos Conduct Successful Raids" :" He was a top-notcher at this sort of thing, and we trailed out Behind him as full of good spirits and confidence as need be- A matter of several hum dred yards we had to go, or rather crawl It was snake in the grass all the time, or, rakher, rats in the shell-hole: but through all the era ters and past all the little rises of earth we crept successfully and soon we found ourselves breathless and ex- pectant, at the very gates of the ene- my. ~
 It was mighty good fortune to have got so far undetecteds but your Hun is a queer chap. He goes on the principle, tevidently, that his oppon- ent is bound, like himself. to follow the text books. In other words, he a not to attempt the seemingly ridi- culous. such as night-raiding in day light and that sort of thing. But that's where we have upset him in many of his stupid, hard-and-fast ways of figuring things out, and once more our little lot was destined to upset him again
 We had a 'breather' for Q few min utes. during which our officer. al- ways first and foremost in anything of the kind, did a little bit of scout 1ng on his own. We saw him vanish for a little and waited for his reap learance and his signal in state of and the signal came-frantic, joyful! We mbved up
 And then over the edge of the pockets parapet we scrambled steal thily and looked over. And what do you think we saw? Half-a-dozen Huns having a quiet game of cards!
 Astonished! That's mild term! We were in a fever by this time. The card game went smoothly on, and just as one of the Huns was about to finish it with I suppose, the Ger man word trump" our leader rose and hurling his bomb, shouted: 'I go napi"
 Lord, what a scene! The crash, the smoke, the. yells our rush into the trench,S the started.- smothered curses of the Huns, the hurrying back over the parapet,s the lightning escort oi the captives to our lines-it was al overs neat as ninepence. in seconds
 Oh, yes. there's an explanation oi how we managed to get any Huns al all after the bomb was thrown. The offer knew. what he wanted, and he knew how to get it. We were out fol live Fritzies. It was not worth al the rehearsals and risky we had un dertaken to merely wipe out half-a dozen Huns. So, when he flung hi. bomb, he flung it wide, more to scare the card party than anything else Some of them got a chip or two, bu nothing serious. They got over theil sores. fancy. sooner than they go over their astonishment, Judging a least by the looks they gave us be fore they were handed over to tn, powers4that-be- I guess they though we were uncanny chaps. and no mis take. Anyway. we'd succeeded.
 A Great Air Battle
 I've said how we have upset tn, Huns textbook theories by doing al sorts of things which we ought no to do-in theoretical warfare. Well now, our airmen are just the same suppos, although I don't know, tha It's. breaking the rules of, at least theoretical aerial warfare for airmel to come down over the very head of machine gunners and infantry and pepper them. It looks like ask ing for holes to be made in you wings, and, so far as the Hun airmal is concerned, he can't ever get higl enough.
 One day, however, we got a sur prise in this connection. It was dur ing the time we were fighting tn TIindnburK rearguards in the retrea, and were hurriedly entrenching, O rather. adapting a captured trench a point where they intended to shoy flight. Suddenly there came swoopini towards us a huge German aeroplane with its great iron cross painted bij and black upon its wings.
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