broke out from the German position - light & heavy gun fire and rifle fire. After five minutes of this we heard an explosion and it transpired the Germans had exploded a mine about 100 foot short of our trenches. A house undercover of which a mine of ours had been sunk collapsed, & the men in it were buried; a portion of the trench near the house was also knocked in. The gun and rifle fire continued for another ten minutes, and the conclusion we afterwards came to was that the Germans were under the impression we were going to attack them, & exploded the