At 7 A.M. the colonel announced that he and myself would ride up to Becourt Chateau to visit the C.R.A. We touched the southern edge of Albert, familiar to thousands of British soldiers. The last time I had been there was on my return from leave in January 1917, when I dined and slept at the newly-opened officers' club. Since the Boche swoop last March it had become a target for British gunners, and seemed in as bad a plight as the village we had come through the night before. We had no time to visit it that morning, and trotted on along a road lined with unburied German dead, scattered ammunition, and broken German vehicles. The road dipped into a wood, and the colonel showed me the first battery position he occupied in France, when he commanded a 4.5 how. battery. Becourt Chateau was so much a chateau now that Divisional Headquarters were living in tents outside. Four motor-cars stood in the courtyard; some thirty chargers were tied to the long high railings; motor despatch-riders kept coming and going. R.A. were on the far side of the chateau, and when our grooms had taken our horses we leapt a couple of trenches and made our way to the brigade-major's tent. The brigade-major was frankly pleased with the situation. "We are going right over the old ground, sir," he told the colonel, "and the Boche has not yet made a proper stand. Our Divisional Infantry are in the line again, and the latest report, timed 6 A.M., comes from Montauban, and says that they are approaching Trones Wood. We shall be supporting them to-morrow morning, and the C.R.A. is anxious for positions to be reconnoitred in X 10 and X 11. The C.R.A. has gone up that way in the car this morning."

I looked into an adjoining tent and found the liaison officer from the heavies busy on the telephone. "A 5.9 battery shooting from the direction of Ginchy. Right! You can't give me a more definite map-spotting? Right-o! We'll attend to it! Give me counter-batteries, will you?"

"Heavies doing good work to-day?" I asked.

"Rather," he returned happily. "Why, we've got a couple of 8-inch hows. as far up as Fricourt. That's more forward than most of the field-guns."

As I stepped out there came the swift screaming rush of three high-velocity shells. They exploded with an echoing crash in the wood below, near where my horse and the colonel's had been taken to water. A team came up the incline toward the chateau at the trot, and I looked rather anxiously for our grooms. They rode up within two minutes, collectedly, but each with a strained look. "Did those come anywhere near you?" I inquired. "We just missed 'em, sir," replied Laneridge. "One of them dropped right among the horses at one trough."

By the colonel's orders I rode back to the waggon lines soon afterwards, bearing instructions to the battery commanders to join the colonel at half-past one. The Brigade might expect to move up that evening.

The battery commanders came back by tea-time with plans for that evening's move-up completed. The waggon lines during the afternoon were full of sleeping gunners; a sensible course, as it proved, for at 6.45 P.M. an orderly brought the adjutant a pencilled message from the colonel who was still with the C.R.A. It ran—

Warn batteries that they must have gun limbers and firing battery waggons within 1000 yards of their positions by 3.30 A.M., as we shall probably move at dawn. Headquarters will be ready to start after an early dinner. I am returning by car.

"Hallo! they're expecting a big advance to-morrow," said the adjutant. The note also decided a discussion in which the adjutant, the signalling officer, and the cook had joined as to whether we should dine early and pack up ready to go, or pack up and have dinner when we got to the new position behind Mametz Wood.

It was a dark night again; other brigades of artillery were taking the same route as ourselves, and, apart from the congestion, our own guns had shelled this part so consistently since August 8 that the going was heavy and hazardous. We passed one team with two horses down; at another point an 18-pdr. had slipped into a shell-hole, and the air rang with staccato shouts of "Heave!" while two lines of men strained on the drag-ropes. We reached a damp valley that lay west of a stretch of tree-stumps and scrubby undergrowth—remnants of what was a thick leafy wood before the hurricane bombardments of July 1916. D Battery had pulled their six hows. into the valley; the three 18-pdr. batteries were taking up positions on top of the eastern slope. Before long it became clear that the Boche 5.9 gunners had marked the place down.

"I'm going farther along to X 30 A.M. as zero hour, and I circulated the news to the batteries. Some time later the telephone bell aroused me, and the adjutant said he wanted to give me the time. Some one had knocked over my stub of candle, and after vainly groping for it on the floor, I kicked Wilde, and succeeded in making him understand that if he would light a candle and check his watch, I would hang on to the telephone. Dazed with sleep, Wilde clambered to his feet, trod once or twice on the doctor, and lighted a candle.

"Are you ready?" asked the voice at the other end of the telephone. "Ready, Wilde?" said I in my turn.

"I'll give it you when it's four minutes to one ... thirty seconds to go," went on the adjutant.

Now Wilde always says that the first thing he heard was my calling "thirty seconds to go!" and that I did not give him the "four minutes to one" part of the ceremony. I always tell him he must have been half asleep, and didn't hear me. At any rate, the dialogue continued like this—

Adjutant (over the telephone to me): "Twenty seconds to go."

Me (to Wilde): "Twenty seconds to go."

Wilde: "Twenty seconds."

Adjutant: "Ten seconds to go."

Me: "Ten seconds."

Wilde: "Ten seconds."

Adjutant: "Five seconds."

Me: "Five."

Wilde: "Five."

Adjutant: "Now! Four minutes to one."

Me: "NOW! Four minutes to one."

Wilde (blankly): "But you didn't tell me what time it was going to be."

It was useless arguing, and I had to ring up the adjutant again. As a matter of fact it was the colonel who answered, and supplied me with the "five seconds to go" information; so there was no doubt about the correctness of the time-taking on this occasion, and after I had gone out and roused an officer of each battery, and made him check his watch, I turned in again and sought sleep.



VIII. TRONES WOOD AGAIN

For three hours after zero hour our guns spat fire, fining down from four rounds a gun a minute to the slow rate of one round each minute. The enemy artillery barked back furiously for the first two hours, but got very few shells into our valley; and after a time we paid little heed to the 5.9's and 4.2's that dropped persistently on the top of the western slope. An 8-inch that had landed in the valley about midnight had wrought frightful execution, however. Another brigade lay next to us; in fact one of their batteries had occupied a position intended for our C Battery. The shell fell with a blinding crash among their horses, which they had kept near the guns in readiness for the morning; and for half an hour the darkness was pierced by the cries and groans of wounded men, and the sound of revolvers putting horses out of their pain. Four drivers had been killed and twenty-nine horses knocked out. "A lucky escape for us," was the grim, not unsympathetic comment of C Battery.

All through the morning the messages telephoned to me indicated that the fighting up forward had been hard and relentless. Our infantry had advanced, but twice before eleven o'clock I had to dash out with S.O.S. calls; and at intervals I turned each battery on to enemy points for which special artillery treatment was demanded.

The colonel ordered Wilde and myself to join the forward Headquarters party after lunch. We found them in a small square hut, built at the foot of a range of hills that rose almost sheer 200 feet up, and curled round north-east to Catterpillar Valley in which our batteries had spent a bitter punishing time during the third week of July 1916. The hut contained four wire beds and a five-foot shaft in one corner, where a solitary telephonist crouched uncomfortably at his task. The hut was so cramped for space that one had to shift the table—a map-board laid upon a couple of boxes—in order to move round it.

The winding road outside presented a moving war panorama that afternoon. Two Infantry brigades and their staffs, and some of the battalion commanders, had huts under the hillside, and by four o'clock battalions returned from the battle were digging themselves sheltering holes higher up the hillside. Boche prisoners in slow marching twenties and thirties kept coming along also; some of them used as stretcher-bearers to carry their own and our wounded; others were turned on to the odd jobs that the Army call fatigues. I found one long-haired, red-eyed fellow chopping wood for our cook; my appearance caused a signaller, noted for his Hyde Park Corner method of oratory, to cease abruptly a turgid denunciation of the Hun and all his works.

The talk was all of a counter-attack by which a battalion of Prussian Guards had won back the eastern corner of Trones Wood, one of the day's objectives. One of the Infantry brigadiers, a tall, tireless, fighting soldier, who started the war as a captain, had come round to discuss with the colonel artillery support for the fresh attack his Brigade were to make at 5.45 P.M. This brigadier was rather apt to regard 18-pounders as machine-guns; and it was sometimes instructive to note the cool good-humoured way in which the colonel guided his enthusiasm into other channels. "You're giving me one forward section of 18-pounders there," began the brigadier, marking the map. "Now,"—placing a long lean forefinger on a point 150 yards behind our most advanced infantry post,—"couldn't I have another little fellow there?—that would tickle him up."

The colonel smiled through his glasses. "I don't think we should be helping you more, sir, by doing that.... I can shoot on that point with observed fire as well from where the batteries are as from up there; and think of the difficulty of getting ammunition up."

"Right!" responded the General, and turned immediately to the subject of the 4.5 how. targets.

I went outside, and saw Judd at the head of the two guns of B Battery, that were to be the forward section in the attack, going by at the trot. As he passed he gave me an "I'm for it" grin. I knew that he was trotting his teams because the corner of the valley was still under enemy observation, and had been shelled all day. Bob Pottinger was following in rear.

Five minutes after the two guns passed, the Boche began a hellish strafe upon a battery that had perched itself under the crest of the hill. A couple of hundred 5.9's came over, and we had a view of rapid awe-inspiring bursts, and of men rushing for cover. "Good shooting that," remarked the colonel, who had come to the doorway.

The brigadier paid us another visit late that night. He was almost boyish in his glee. "A perfect little show," he told the colonel. "Your forward guns did very fine work indeed. And the 6-inch hows. gave the wood an awful pasting. From the reports that have come in we only took seven Boche prisoners; practically all the rest were killed."

So we took our rest that night, content in the knowledge that things were going well. There being only four beds, one of us would have to doss down on the floor. The colonel insisted on coming into our "odd man out" gamble. The bare boards fell to me; but I slept well. The canvas bag containing my spare socks fitted perfectly into the hollow of my hip—the chief recipe for securing comfort on hard ground.

Reveille was provided by the bursting of an 8-inch shell on the other side of the road. It removed part of the roof of our hut, and smothered the rest with a ponderous shower of earth. We shaved and washed by the roadside, and Major Mallaby-Kelby contrived a rapid and complete change of underclothing, also in the open air.

By 8.30 A.M. the colonel, Major Mallaby-Kelby, and the battery commanders were walking briskly through the valley and on to the rolling country beyond, reconnoitring for positions to which the batteries would move in the afternoon. Wilde and myself accompanied them, and as Judd and Bob Pottinger were also of the party I heard more details of what B Battery's forward section had done the evening before.

"I saw you turn into the valley at the trot," I said to Judd.

"Yes, by Gad," he replied; "and when we got into the valley we made it a canter. Those dead horses will show you what the valley has been like."

We were striding through the valley now—a death-trap passage, two hundred yards across at its widest point, and less than three-quarters of a mile long. I counted twenty-seven dead horses, lying in grotesque attitudes, some of them cruelly mangled. The narrow-gauge railway had become scattered bits of scrap-iron, the ground a churned waste of shell-holes.

"And the worst of it was that the traces of the second team broke," Pottinger chimed in. "Judd had gone on ahead, and we hadn't any spare traces. So I sent that team back out of the way, followed the first gun, and brought the team back to take up the second gun. Damned good team that, E sub-section. You remember the team we were training for the 'Alarm Race' when we were out at St Saveur? That's the one.... And the old Boche was peppering the valley all the time."

"Did the Boche shell much during the attack?" I asked.

"Well," continued Pottinger, "he gave the guns most of the shelling ——. I was shooting the battery and Judd was doing F.O.O. with the infantry,—and where Judd was it was mostly machine-guns."

"Yes," said Judd, "I got the wind-up with those machine-guns. I couldn't find the battalion headquarters at first, and it was 150 yards from the wood. The first lot of machine-gun bullets went in front of me; one plopped into a bank just past my foot. It was dam funny. I spun right round.... But the infantry colonel, the colonel of the ——s, was a brave man. We only had a tiny dug-out, and every time you got out the machine-gun started. But he didn't mind; he got out and saw for himself everything that was going on. Didn't seem to worry him at all.... And I shall never forget the way the heavies lammed it into the wood. They had half an hour, six batteries of 6-inch howitzers, before the 18-pounders put in a five minutes' burst of shrapnel.... They say the wood is choked with German dead."

It was this self-same colonel who wrote to his brigadier commending the fine work of Judd and Pottinger on that day. Before October was out each was wearing the M.C. ribbon.

Battery positions being selected, the colonel, Major Mallaby-Kelby, and myself cast round for a headquarters. Some machine-gunners had taken possession of the only possible dug-outs. However, there were numerous huts, abandoned by the Hun, and I was chalking our claim on a neat building with a latched door and glass windows, and a garden-seat outside, when the colonel, who was gazing through his binoculars at the long, dense, hillside wood that marked the eastern edge of the valley, said in his decisive way, "What's that Swiss chalet at the top of the gully in the centre of wood?... Looks a proper sort of place for headquarters!... Let's go and inspect it."

The view through the binoculars was not deceptive; indeed, when we plunged into the wood and made the steep climb up to the chalet, we passed five or six beautifully built huts hidden among the trees. The chalet was equipped with a most attractive verandah; a hundred feet below stood a larger wooden building, covered with black felt and lined with match-boarding. The main room possessed tables obviously made by expert carpenters, and a roomy bench, with a sloping back, that went round two sides of the apartment. An inner bedroom contained a wood-framed bed with a steel spring-mattress and a number of plush-bottomed chairs. The Boche had extended his craftsmanship to the neat slats that covered the joinings of the wall-planks and kept out draughts. All the wood used was new and speckless, and smelt sweet and clean. The other huts were constructed with similar attention to detail. Also, one came across tables and benches in shady nooks, and arbours of the kind found in German beer-gardens.

"Jehoshaphat," gasped Major Mallaby-Kelby, "this is indeed the height of war luxury." The colonel, who was going on leave next day, not having been in England since the early part of January, smiled in his turn, and jested upon the desirability of delaying his departure until we vacated this delightful retreat. Wilde and myself nosed about joyously, chalking the name of our unit on every door within reach. From a Boche artillery map picked up in the chalet we concluded that the place must have been the summer quarters of a Hun artillery group commander.

And then without warning our satisfaction was changed to disappointment. Major Mallaby-Kelby had just called out that the place was so complete that even a funk-hole had been provided, when a gunner emerged.

"What are you doing here?" inquired the major in surprise.

"I'm left here until our brigade headquarters come in, sir," the gunner replied promptly.

"What brigade?"

"The —rd, sir," said the gunner, naming our companion Artillery Brigade.

"When did Colonel —— take over?" asked the colonel.

"About an hour ago, sir. He left me to look after the place until Brigade Headquarters came in this afternoon."

We looked solemnly at one another. "We've been forestalled," said the colonel with mock despair. Then with brisk decision, "Well, there are plenty more huts about here. We'll hurry up and get settled before other people come along."

* * * * *

The colonel left us during the afternoon. The C.R.A.'s car was to come for him at headquarters waggon line early next morning. The doctor, who was now living with the veterinary officer and the French interpreter at the waggon line, had visited our new quarters in the wood, and hoicked off our last but one bottle of whisky. I had despatched a frantic S.O.S., coupled with 100 francs in cash, to the colonel, begging him take the interpreter to Boulogne so as to replenish our mess supplies. Our good friends of the —rd Brigade had occupied the chalet, and received one sharp reminder that the Boche gunner was still a nasty animal. A high-velocity shell had hit the edge of the gully not ten yards from them, and their adjutant and their intelligence officer had described to me their acrobatic plunge into the funk-hole. Major Mallaby-Kelby was commanding our Brigade in the absence of the colonel, and already our signal-wires buzzed with reports that indicated a very short sojourn in our new home in the wood.

I am making this narrative a plain matter-of-fact record of incidents and episodes in the career of our Brigade—which, let it be noted, was in action from August 1, before the British advance commenced, until November 4, the day of the final decisive thrust—because such an account, however poorly told, offers a picture of real war: the war that is by no means one continuous stretch of heroism and martyrdom in excelsis, of guns galloping to death or glory, of bayonets dripping with enemy blood, of "our gallant lads" meeting danger and destruction with "characteristic British humour and cheerfulness," when they are not "seeing red." On that 29th of August, when Major Mallaby-Kelby assumed command, we knew that the campaign had taken a definite turn in our favour, but none of us expected the Boche to be so harried and battered that by November he would be suing for peace. And I am stating bald unimaginative facts if I say that one of the main aspirations among officers and men was to continue the advance in such a way as to make sure of decent quarters o' nights, and to drive the Germans so hard that when winter set in we should be clear of the foul mud tracts and the rat-infested trenches that had formed the battlefields of 1915, '16, and '17. Major Mallaby-Kelby was a keen pushful officer, immensely eager to maintain the well-known efficiency of the Brigade while the colonel was away; but he took me into his confidence on another matter. "Look here!" he began, jocularly and with a sweeping gesture. "I'm going to ask you to make sure that the mess never runs out of white wine. It's most important. Unless I get white wine my efficiency will be impaired." I replied with due solemnity, and said that in this important matter our interpreter should be specially commissioned to scour the countryside.

By 1 P.M. it became so certain that the enemy had inaugurated a retreat that the major issued orders for the Brigade to move forward three miles. We marched steadily down the valley through which Judd and Pottinger had passed on their forward-section adventure, skirted the wood that they had assisted the Divisional Infantry to recapture, and halted for further instructions west of a deserted colony of battered Nissen huts, gaping holes and broken bricks shovelled into piles, still entered on the maps as the village of Guillemont. It would have been a truer description to paint on the sign-boards, "This was Villers Carbonnel," as has been done at one desolate spot between Peronne and Villers Bretonneux. Along the valley we had passed were row after row of solidly-built stables left uncleaned and smelly by the fleeing Hun; rotting horses smothered with flies; abandoned trucks marooned on the few stretches of the narrow-gauge railway left whole by our shell-fire. In the wood stood numerous Boche-built huts, most of them put up since the March onslaught. The Boche, dirty cur that he is, had deliberately fouled them before departing. The undulating waste land east of Trones Wood, hallowed by memories of fierce battles in 1916, had remained untroubled until the last few weeks; and the hundreds of shell-holes, relics of 1916, had become grass-grown. The hummocky greenness reminded one of nothing so much as a seaside golf-course.



IX. DOWN THE ROAD TO COMBLES

A Battery had been ordered to move about half a mile beyond Guillemont, and to come into action off the road that led towards the extensive, low-lying village of Combles, through which the enemy front line now ran. Major Mallaby-Kelby had gone forward and the three remaining batteries awaited his return.

I clambered my horse over the shell-holes and rubbish heaps of Guillemont, a preliminary to a short reconnaissance of the roads and tracks in the neighbourhood. Old Silvertail, having become a confirmed wind-sucker, had been deported to the Mobile Veterinary Section; Tommy, the shapely bay I was now riding, had been transferred to me by our ex-adjutant, Castle, who had trained him to be well-mannered and adaptable. "A handy little horse," was Castle's stock description, until his increasing weight made Tommy too small for him. I had ridden about six hundred yards past the sunken road in which A Battery's ammunition waggons were waiting, when half a dozen 5.9's crashed round and about them. I turned back and saw more shells descend among the empty Nissen huts in Guillemont. Two drivers of A Battery were being carried away on stretchers and the waggons were coming towards me at a trot. They halted four hundred yards from the spot where they had been shelled, and young Beale said they counted themselves lucky not to have had more casualties.

The Boche by now had got his guns in position and began a two hours' bombardment of Guillemont and its cross-roads. It was not until 7 P.M. that Major Mallaby-Kelby returned. He was tired, but anxious to go forward. "We are the advanced Brigade for to-morrow's show," he said. "The battery positions are only 1600 yards from the Boche, but I think they will be comparatively safe.... I want you all to come along and we'll arrange a headquarters. I've got my eye on a sunken Nissen hut. There's a section commander of another brigade in it, but it ought to be big enough to hold us as well."

So the major, the adjutant, Wilde, and myself walked at a smart pace along the road to Combles. The Boche shells were mostly going over our heads, but whizz-bangs now and again hit the ground to left and right of us; a smashed limber had not been cleared from the road, and fifty yards short of the railway crossing four decomposing horses emitted a sickening stench. "We'll have our headquarters waggon line along there first thing to-morrow," announced the major, stretching a long arm towards a side-road with a four-foot bank.

At the forsaken railway halt we turned off the roadway and followed the line, obeying to the letter the major's warning to bend low and creep along under cover of the low embankment, "Now we'll slip through here," said the major, after a six-hundred-yards' crawl. We hurried through what had been an important German depot. There was one tremendous dump of eight-gallon, basket-covered wine bottles—empty naturally; a street of stables and dwelling-huts; a small mountain of mouldy hay; and several vast barns that had been used for storing clothing and material. Each building was protected from our bombers by rubble revetments, fashioned with the usual German carefulness. "They shell here pretty consistently," added the major encouragingly, and we made for more open land that sloped up towards a well-timbered wood on the wide-stretched ridge, a thousand yards away. The sparse-covered slopes were dotted with living huts, all built since the Boche recovered the ground in his March push. "A Battery have moved to within two hundred yards of Leuze Wood now—you can see the guns," resumed the major. "The other battery positions are on the southern side of the road. The place I have in my eye for headquarters is close to A Battery."

The German artillery had quite evidently understood the likelihood of British batteries occupying the slope, and were acting accordingly. Our party had reached a smashed hut three hundred yards from A Battery, when the whine of an approaching shell caused us to drop to ground; it fell fifty yards away, and the air became dense with flying pieces of shell and earth showers. As we raised ourselves again we saw Beadle walking at an even pace towards us. "Not a nice spot, sir," he began, saluting the major. "We picked that place for a mess"—pointing to the broken hut—"and five minutes later a shell crashed into it. There's a dead horse round the corner ..."

"Have you been shelled much at the battery?" demanded the major.

"We had two sergeants killed a quarter of an hour ago, sir.... Captain Dumble is arranging to shift the guns a bit north of the present position,—do you approve of that, sir?"

"Yes, certainly," responded Major Mallaby-Kelby hastily. "If the direction of the shelling indicates that it would mean more safety for the battery I'm all for shifting." Beadle saluted and went away.

There was not as much spare room in the Nissen hut as the major had thought. He asked me to "organise things" and to "scrounge round" for a trench-cover to separate the subaltern and his gunners from our party; but while I was dodging shells, making the search, he found a small Boche combination hut and dug-out. The opening pointed the wrong way, of course; but there was one tiny chamber twenty feet below ground with a wooden bed in it, and upstairs a table, a cupboard, and a large heap of shavings. It was now eight o'clock, and the major remembered that he had not even had tea.

"Now what are we going to do about a meal?" he broke out. "We can't have many servants up here, there's no room ... and it will be difficult to get the mess cart up. Now, who has any suggestions? On these matters I like to hear suggestions."

My own idea was that Meddings the cook, the major's servant, and one other servant should bring up some bully-beef, cheese, and bread, and bacon and tea for the morning. All that we wanted could be carried in a couple of sandbags. We could do without valises and blankets that night. Zero hour for the battle was 5.15 A.M. The mess cart could come along afterwards. The proposition was favourably received, the major's only revision referring to his white wine.

Headquarter waggons had remained the other side of Guillemont, and I volunteered to walk back and bring the servants up. The major thought that Wilde ought to accompany me; it was not too pleasant a pilgrimage with the Boche maintaining his shelling.

But as we climbed the stairs of the dug-out the major made a further decision. "I think you might as well bring the mess cart," he called out. I paused. "Not very easy to bring it round here in the dark, sir," I said, and Wilde raised his eyebrows deprecatingly.

"Yes, I think you had better bring it," continued the major. "There are two officers, and besides, the drivers have to learn the way to come here.... Don't forget my bottle of white wine, old fellow," was his parting reminder as Wilde and I set off.

The nature of the shelling caused us to direct our steps through the Boche depot towards the railway again. "Pity we didn't have something to eat before we came up here," growled Wilde. "What road are we going to bring the cart along when we come back? There's no proper track when we get off the main road."

I looked back towards the hut in which we had left the major and the adjutant. There was little to distinguish it from several other huts. "There's the Red Cross station and that big wooden building at the corner; I think we shall recognise them again," I said.

"Do you see that signalling pole on the roadside? That's a pole crossing, and I know there's a track leading off the road there," added Wilde shrewdly. "That's the way we'd better bring the cart."

It was nearly dark when we reached the Guillemont cross-roads. Small parties of infantrymen were coming along, and ammunition and ration waggons. As we turned up the road leading south-west, a square-shouldered man with a stiff big-peaked cap saluted with the crisp correctness of the regular soldier. I recognised the sergeant-major of A Battery.

"Were you much shelled when you took your waggon lines up there this evening?" I asked him.

"Yes, sir. It got too hot, and Major Bullivant sent us down again half an hour ago. All the batteries have shifted their waggon lines back behind Guillemont, sir."

"All the more exciting for us," muttered Wilde. By the aid of my electric torch we picked our way along a rough track that took us to our waggons. The drivers and spare signallers were waiting orders to settle down for the night. When I told the cook that we only wanted bare necessities in the mess cart, he answered, "That'll mean emptying the cart first. We've got everything aboard now." Such things as the stove, the spare crockery and cutlery, several tins of biscuits, and the officers' kit were quickly dumped upon the ground, and I told off one of the servants to act as guard over it until the morning. "What about this, sir?" inquired the cook, opening a large cardboard box. "The interpreter sent it up this evening." I noted twenty eggs and a cake. "Yes, put that in," I replied quickly.

Wilde detailed a signaller to accompany the driver of the cart, and, with Meddings and two of the servants walking behind, the journey commenced. A ten-minutes' hold-up occurred when Captain Denny of B Battery, a string of waggons behind him, shouted my name through the darkness. He wanted the loan of my torch for a brief study of the shell-holes, as he intended establishing the battery waggon lines in the vicinity.

The Boche had started his night-firing in earnest by the time the mess cart and party passed the cross-roads at Guillemont. A pungent smell of gas led to much coughing and sneezing. The air cleared as the road ascended, but shells continued to fly about us, and no one looked particularly happy. There were nervy, irritating moments when waggons in front halted unaccountably; and, just before the railway crossing, Wilde had to go forward and coax a pair of R.E. mules, who refused to pass the four dead horses lying in the road. The railway crossing passed, we began to look for the black-and-white signalling pole.

"Here it is," called Wilde with relief, as a 5.9 sped over us towards the railway line. "Come along, Miller," he shouted to the mess-cart driver, fifty yards behind us. The cart creaked and wobbled in the bumpy ditch-crossing that led past the pole. "There's the big building," said I, going on ahead, "and here's the Red Cross place. We're getting on fine. We'll tell M'Klown and Tommy Tucker that we'll apply for a job with the 980 company" (the A.S.C. company that supplied the Brigade with forage and rations).

"We want to go half-right from here," I continued, lighting up my torch for four or five seconds. The track led, however, to the left, and we slowed our pace. Another two hundred yards and we came to a junction; one track curved away to the right, the other went back towards the road.

A high-velocity shell screamed over and burst with a weird startling flash of flame a hundred yards away. We followed the right-hand path, and found that it bent to the left again. "This is getting puzzling," I said to Wilde in a low voice. "I think we've come right so far," he replied, "but I shall be glad when we're there."

We went on for another five minutes, the cart following. Then suddenly the situation became really worrying. We were facing a deep impassable trench. "Damn!" said Wilde angrily. "I was afraid this would happen."

"I don't think we can be more than a couple of hundred yards from where we want to get," I answered. "It ought to be in that direction. Let's give 'em a hail."

"They'll be down below—they won't hear us," said Wilde gloomily.

We stood up on the trench and called first the name of the Brigade and then the name of the adjutant. Not a sound in reply. We shouted again, the servants joining in. Another shell, bursting near enough to spray the mess cart with small fragments! At last we heard a cry, and shouted harder than ever. A figure came out of the gloom, and I recognised Stenson, A Battery's round-faced second lieutenant. "Ah! now we're all right," I called out cheerfully. "You see how we're tied up," I said, turning to Stenson. "Our headquarters is close to your battery. Which is the way to it?"

Stenson's face fell. "That's what I was hoping you would tell me," he replied blankly. "I've lost myself."

There was a groan from Wilde.

"I left the battery about half an hour ago because some one was shouting outside in the dark," went on Stenson. "I found a major sitting in a shell-hole; he had lost his way trying to get back to the railway. I managed to put him right—now I can't find the battery."

Another voice came from the far side of the trench, and we peered at the newcomer. It was one of the Brigade orderlies, who also had lost his way trying to find an infantry battalion headquarters. I examined him on his sense of direction, but all I got from him was that if he could reach the road and see the fifth telegraph pole from the wood, he would know that Brigade Headquarters lay on a line due north.

More shells dropped near, and I began to think of Minnie, our patient mess-cart mare. We must get her and the cart out of the way as soon as possible. Close by stood a big Nissen hut, sunk half-way below ground. After consulting with Wilde, I told the servants to unload the cart and carry the stuff into the hut. The cart having gone, we went inside; and, lighting a candle, discovered the usual empty bottles and scattered German illustrated periodicals that indicate a not too hurried Boche evacuation. After a ten minutes' wait, during which the Boche shelling increased in intensity, Stenson, the orderly, and myself went forth with my torch, bent upon trying all the tracks within reach until we found the right one. And though we twice followed ways that disappointed us, and turned and searched with a bitter sense of bafflement, our final path led in the direction to which I had first pointed. We found ourselves close to the shell-stricken hut where I had met Beale of A Battery earlier in the evening. "I know where we are now," I shouted hilariously.

"Who's that?" called some one sharply. I turned my torch on to the owner of the voice. It was Kelly of D Battery, yet another lost soul. "I'm hanged if I know where I am," he explained angrily. "I can't find the battery. I was going to lie down inside here until it got light, ... but I have no matches, and I put my hand on a clammy dead Boche."

"Get away with you!" I laughed. "That's a dead horse. I saw it this afternoon."

Sure of my ground now, I walked comfortably towards the dug-out where Major Mallaby-Kelby and the adjutant were waiting. It was 11.15 P.M. now. Tired and hungry and without candles, they had fallen asleep.

"By Gad! you're back," ejaculated the major when I touched him.... "Have you brought my white wine?"

"It is coming, sir, before very long," I responded soothingly.

I stood outside, flashed my torch, and yelled for Wilde. An answering shout was succeeded by Wilde himself. "Why, we were quite close all the time," he said in surprise.

"Now you go back with the orderly and bring Meddings over with something to eat," I went on, "every one's famished." Soon Meddings arrived, striding across shell-holes and treacherous ground with a heavy mess-box balanced on his head.

"Only bully beef to-night, sir," said Meddings to the expectant major as he dumped the box on the floor of the hut.

"My dear fellow, I can eat anything, a crust or a dog-biscuit, I'm so hungry."

Meddings raised the lid and we all crowded round. "By Gad! this is too much," snapped the major.

The box contained nothing but cups and plates and saucers.

When Meddings returned with a second box the major and the adjutant seized some biscuits and munched happily and voraciously. "You devils," said the major, grinning reproachfully at Wilde and myself, "I bet you had whiskies-and-sodas at the waggon line. Why were you so long?"

We didn't go into full explanations then, and I must confess that when the major, in his haste, knocked the bottle of white wine off the table and smashed it, Wilde and myself could scarcely forbear a chuckle. That ought, of course, to be the climax of the story; but it wasn't. I had put two bottles of the major's white wine into the mess cart, so the concluding note was one of content. Also I might add, Stenson called upon us to say that A Battery's mess cart had failed to arrive, and four foodless officers asked us to have pity upon them. So A Battery received a loaf and a big slab of the truly excellent piece of bully, a special kind that Meddings had obtained in some mysterious fashion from a field ambulance that was making a hurried move. "You two fellows have earned your supper," said the now peaceful major to Wilde and myself. "I didn't think you were going to have so trying a journey." We ate bully sandwiches solidly until 1 A.M. Then the major and the adjutant descended to their little room below ground. I glanced through 'The Times,' and then Wilde and myself found a restful bed upon the shavings. The cook and the servants had gone back to the Nissen hut.

The major's last words as he fell asleep were, "I've to be at the —th Infantry Brigade Headquarters at 4.45 in the morning. I think I'll take the adjutant with me.... No,"—sleepily,—"you'd better come, Wilde."

At 4 A.M., when the major's servant woke us, the major called up the stairs to me, "I think, after all, you'd better come with me." As I had not removed my boots, it didn't take me long to be up and ready.

Before we were fifty yards from the hut the major and I shared in one of the narrowest escapes that have befallen me in France. We heard the shell coming just in time to crouch. According to Meddings, who stood in the doorway of the hut, it fell ten yards from us. Smothered with earth, we moved forward rapidly immediately we regained our feet.

"We shall be right for the rest of the day after that," panted the major. "The —th Brigade are in the bank along the road from Leuze Wood to Combles," he added, reading from a message form. As we left the dewy grass land and got on to the road that led through the wood, other shells whistled by, but none of them near enough to set our nerves tingling again. Indeed the state of mind of both of us seemed sanguine and rose-coloured. "Fine bit of country this," said the major in his quick jerky way, "and that purple haze is quite beautiful. It ought to be lighter than this. It's not even half morning light yet.... My old uncle in County Clare would be sure to call it dusk. He often used to say when we were arranging a day's fishing, 'Let me see, it will still be dusk at 5 A.M.'"

The major drew an envelope from his pocket and fixed his eyeglass. "Awkward thing sometimes having a double-barrelled name," he continued. "I remember a bright young subaltern in a reserve brigade in England, whose name was Maddock-Smith, or something like that. He complained that the brigade clerk had not noticed the hyphen, and that he was down to do double duty as orderly officer—once as Maddock and once as Smith."

We were now through the wood, and walking down the hill direct to Combles. Everything seemed profoundly quiet; not a soul in the road save ourselves. "Seems strange," observed the major, frowning. "Infantry Brigade Headquarters ought to be about here. They can't be much farther off. The starting line is only a few hundred yards away."

"You'd certainly expect to see plenty of messengers and runners near a brigade headquarters," I put in. "Hullo! here's some one on a bicycle."

It was a New Zealand officer. "Can you tell me where the —th Brigade Headquarters are?" he asked.

"We are looking for them ourselves," replied the major. "I've to be there by 4.45, and it's past that now."

We went down to where a track crossed the road at right angles. Still no one in sight. "Don't understand it," remarked the New Zealand officer. "I'm going back for more information."

The major and I remained about five minutes longer watching the haze that enveloped the village below commence to lift. Then suddenly we heard the sharp metallic crack of quick-firing guns behind, and dozens of 18-pdr. shells whistled above us. The barrage had started.

Almost immediately red Very lights went up within a stone's-throw as it seemed to me. And now Boche lights leapt up on our left where the haze prevented us seeing the Morval ridge, the highest ground in the neighbourhood, and still in enemy hands. Presently the devilish rattle of machine-guns rapped out, spreading round the half-circle along which the alarm lights were still soaring heavenwards.

"We can't do anything by staying here," decided the major. "My place is with the Infantry Brigade, and I must find them."

"We can report, at any rate, that the Boche lights went up within a few seconds of the start of our barrage, and that the enemy artillery replied within four minutes," I remarked, looking at my wrist-watch, as shells from the direction of the Boche lines poured through the air.

"Yes, we can say that," responded the major, "and ——, keep down!" he called out violently.

A number of bullets had swished swiftly past us. We kept close to the bank and walked, bending down, until we came again to the sunken portion of the road.

"We can also report that this road was subjected to machine-gun fire," concluded the major pointedly.

We ducked again with startled celerity just before reaching the wood. This time it was a short-range shell from one of our own guns—there was no mistaking the wheezy, tinny sound of its passage through the air. It fell in front of us on the edge of the road, and delivered its shrapnel as vengefully as if it had fallen in the Boche lines. As we came beyond the wood we met young Stenson with a small party of gunners. His face shone with expectancy. He was on the way to man the forward gun that A Battery had placed overnight under cover of a bank not far from the road the major and I had just walked along.

"Well, old fellow," remarked the major, removing his steel helmet when we got back to headquarters, "a cup of tea, and you'd better go straight down to those trenches the other side of Guillemont and inquire what has become of the Infantry Brigade. And you can deliver our reconnoitring report."

It was a long walk, and I resolved to pick up my horse for the return journey. The Infantry brigadier was taking an early cup of tea when I found his headquarters. His brigade-major told me that there had been a change of plan, and the Brigade did not come forward, as previously arranged. "We couldn't find you to let you know," he explained. "Show me the position of your headquarters on the map.... Oh, we have our advanced headquarters not three hundred yards from you, and you will find the 2nd —— headquarters near there too.... I'm sorry we didn't let you know last night. But none of our despatch-riders could find you."

I rode back the best part of the way, and found the major, the adjutant, and Wilde fortifying themselves with eggs and bacon.

"We'll look round for a better protected headquarters than this after breakfast," said the major briskly.

"When I've had a shave, sir," I answered appealingly. "I can't maintain my efficiency without a shave, you know."



X. A MASTERLY TURNING MOVEMENT

August 30: Before noon we learned that the battle had gone not altogether our way. Our own Divisional Infantry had fought well and scattered the Boche in the low-lying village of Combles, but the Division on our left had failed to force the enemy from the Morval Heights. Consequently our infantry had been ordered to withdraw their line slightly, while it remained impossible for the Field Artillery to push forward so long as the Boche observers possessed the Morval ridge.

Our batteries, with an S.O.S. range of 1700 yards, were close enough, as it was, to startle strict adherents of siege-war principles. Indeed A Battery's forward section, handled first by Dumble and then by Stenson, had boldly harassed the enemy machine-gunners from under 500 yards' range. Dumble had already been recommended for the Military Cross, and Major Bullivant described Stenson's exploits while visiting Brigade Headquarters during the afternoon.

"Yesterday," he told Major Mallaby-Kelby, "he took a sniping gun on to the crest, and kept it in action for four hours, firing 150 rounds. At one time he was within three hundred yards of the enemy. He wiped out at least two infantry teams and waggons—although the Boche tried hard to knock his gun out with 5.9's and whizz-bangs. This morning he fired 500 rounds over open sights, and the colonel of the ——s tells me he helped our infantry a lot. I understand that more than once, when his gunners got tired, he 'layed' the gun himself—not part of an officer's work, perhaps—but he's a very sound youngster, and I should like to get him something."

"I shall be pleased indeed to put him in," responded Major Mallaby-Kelby. "A word from the infantry would, of course, help."

Our new headquarters, nearer to the Boche depot, consisted simply of a deep stairless shaft with a 40 degrees slope. The props supporting the roof were fusty with mildew and fungus, but the entrance faced away from the German guns. As the colonel of the 2nd ——s was keen to be in liaison with us, he and his adjutant and a couple of signallers shared the shaft. The servants gathered clean straw from the German dump and strewed it down the shaft. Major Mallaby-Kelby and the colonel, a slim soft-voiced young man at least twenty-six years of age, with a proved reputation for bravery and organising powers, had their blankets laid side by side at the top of the shaft; the two adjutants, plus telephones, came next; then a couple of signallers with telephone switch-boards; and, lowest of all, the doctor and myself. Wilde and his signallers, the cook and his servants, had installed themselves in a roomy hut stuck in a big bank thirty yards away. There was a sort of well at the top of the shaft, with steps cut in the earth, leading down from the ground-level. We fastened a tarpaulin across the top of the well and made it our mess. It was not unwise to pick such a well-shielded nook; the Boche gunners flung shells about more in this neighbourhood than along the slope where the batteries were situated.

We slept three nights in the shaft. Each morning on awaking I discovered that I had slipped a couple of yards downhill. I made further full acquaintance, too, with the completeness of the doctor's snoring capabilities. Down in that shaft he must have introduced a new orgy of nasal sounds. It commenced with a gentle snuffling that rather resembled the rustling of the waters against the bows of a racing yacht, and then in smooth even stages crescendoed into one grand triumphant blare.

September 1 proved a day of glory in the history of the Division. Conferences of Generals, and dashing to and fro of despatch-riders, produced ambitious plans for an advance that would more than make up for the set-back of August 30. A brigade of our own Divisional Infantry was again to descend upon the village of Combles, while another brigade, working on the flank, would effect a turning movement northwards towards Fregicourt, a hamlet twelve hundred yards north-east of Combles. Meanwhile the Division on our left intended to make a desperate effort to free the Morval Heights.

My task was to be brigade liaison officer with the —th Infantry Brigade, who had come up overnight to a quarry a quarter of a mile beyond D Battery's position. It was a crisp invigorating day, with a nip in the air that foretold the approach of autumn, and it would have been a pleasant walk along the valley had not one constantly to get to leeward of the dead horses that littered the way. And I shall always recall a small log-cabin that stood isolated in the centre of the valley—the sort of place that could mean lone settlers or hermit hunters to imaginative boyhood. I felt drawn to the hut. The door hung ajar and I looked in. A young German infantry soldier, dead, his face palely putty-like, his arms hanging loose, sat on a bench before a plain wooden table. There was no disorder in the hut. Many a time have I seen sleeping men in more grotesque attitudes. But the open jacket and the blood-stained shirt told probably of a miserable being who had crept inside to die.

A red triangular flag hanging limply from a lance stuck in the chalk-bank near a roughly-contrived tarpaulin and pit-prop shelter revealed the infantry brigadier's headquarters. The Brigade signalling officer hailed me from a dug-out that flew the blue and white of the signalling company. Outside the brigade-major's hut I found Captain Drysdale of D Battery, and two other gunner officers. "We are kicking our heels, waiting for news like newspaper correspondents during a Cabinet crisis," said Drysdale with a bored smile. "I can't see why they want so many liaison officers.... I went without my dinner to get here from the waggon line last night, and haven't had breakfast yet; and these people haven't told us a scrap of news yet."

"You're doing liaison for Division, aren't you?" I said, "and I'm for Brigade. They can't need us both."

"Except that the General told me he might require me to go forward with him to look for targets," replied Drysdale.

"Well, if you like, you slip along to the battery for breakfast. I'll hold the fort until you come back."

There was, indeed, until well on in the morning, surprisingly little information to be telephoned to the Artillery. What news the Infantry brigade-major did receive, however, was all to the good. The battalions that went into Combles were going strong, and the mopping-up was being done with the old-soldier thoroughness that so many of the young lads who only learnt war during the summer advance seemed to acquire so rapidly. One of the companies engaged in the turning movement had paid the penalty of over-eagerness, and losing touch with a sister company had been badly enfiladed by German machine-gunners; but another company had rushed up to fill their place and the movement was progressing towards its appointed end.

A dozen Boche prisoners were brought in, dirty, hollow-eyed, and furtive. "This one speaks English, sir," said the dapper little private of the East ——s, who had charge of the party, addressing an intelligence officer.

I spoke afterwards to this prisoner, a dark pale-faced infantry man with staring eyes. His English was fair, although he told me he had only visited England once, for a fortnight—in London and Manchester. He had been a telephone manufacturer's employee.

"You were in Combles when you were captured?" I asked.

"Yes."

"How long had you been in the line?"

"Four days; we went down to Combles yesterday morning."

"Did your rations get up last night?" I proceeded, thinking of our all-night burst of fire on enemy cross-roads and approaches.

"We took ours with us, but none came for the others there. They had had nothing for two days."

The marching away of the prisoners prevented further questions. Soon the Divisional Commander with his attendant staff came up, and a conference in the brigadier's headquarters was commenced. After half an hour the G.O.C. came out. His demeanour betokened satisfaction. The manner in which he turned to speak parting words to the brigadier indicated further activities. A captain of the West ——s, who had been in reserve, turned from watching him, and said to me, "I expect we shall be performing this afternoon." Soon the phrase, "exploiting initial success," ran from tongue to tongue.

This was the message that at noon I telephoned to our adjutant:—

7th ——s and East ——s will push forward fighting patrols to exploit success in an easterly and north-easterly direction into St Pierre Vaast Wood, and along the road to S——. Patrols will not penetrate into squares X 120 and Z 130, as —th Division will continue its advance in Y 140, a and c, under a barrage very shortly.

Artillery have been given tasks of harassing fire east of St Pierre Vaast Wood, and will not fire west of line eastern edge of this wood to A 210, b 05.

Patrols must be pushed out without delay, as it is the intention of the Divisional Commander to exploit initial success with another brigade to-day.

"That's the stuff to give 'em," chortled the Brigade signalling officer, who had been whipping round similar messages to various units.

More prisoners kept coming in; the brigade-major's telephone rang furiously; a heavily-moustached infantry signaller, with a bar to his Military Medal, just back from the eastern side of Combles, was telling his pals how an officer and himself had stalked a Hun sniper. "He was in a hole behind some trees," he said, "and we were walkin' along, when he hit old Alf in the foot——"

"Is old Alf all right?" asked another signaller quickly.

"Yes"—nodding and grinning—"he's got a nice Blighty—he's all right.... As I was sayin', he hit old Alf in the foot, and Mr Biles says to me, 'We'll get that blighter.' So we dropped, and Mr Biles crawled away to the right and I went to the left. He popped off again after about five minutes, and I saw where the shot came from. He had two other goes, and the second time I saw his head. The next time he popped up I loosed off.... We went to have a look afterwards. I'd got him right under the ear."

At three o'clock the brigade-major complained to us that some 18-pdrs. were shooting short. "They mustn't fire in that square," he said excitedly, "we're still mopping up there."

I telephoned to our adjutant, who said he would speak to our batteries. "We are not firing there at all," he informed me five minutes afterwards, and I reported to the brigade-major.

Ten minutes later the brigade-major rushed angrily out of his hut. "Look here!" he said, "that artillery fire has started again. They've killed a subaltern and a sergeant of the East ——s. You must do something!"

I rang up the adjutant again. "It isn't our people," he replied tersely. "It might be the —th Division on our left," I suggested. "Can you get on to them?"

"I'll get Division to speak to them," he replied.

By five o'clock the number of prisoners roped in by the Division was not far short of a thousand; the Division on the left had gained the Morval ridge, and this, combined with the turning movement from the south, had brought about something like debacle among the enemy forces opposed to us. "That's topping," said the brigade-major when receiving one particular telephone report, and he looked up with a laugh. "The ——s have captured a Boche ambulance waggon, and they have sent it down for receipt on delivery, with horses and driver complete."

Not long afterwards I met Major Veasey, hot and radiant after one of the big adventures of the day. He had gone forward with Kelly, and discovered that the infantry were held up by fierce machine-gun fire. "I was afraid all the time that the major's white breeches would give the show away," Kelly told me, "but we crawled on our bellies to about a hundred yards from the machine-guns—there were two of 'em—and got the exact spot. We went back and told the battery where to fire, and then went forward for another look."

"By Jove, we did pepper 'em. And, hang me, if the major didn't say we must go and make absolutely sure that we had outed 'em. There were nineteen Boches in the trench, and they surrendered to the major.... Look at this pile of revolvers we took from them—fourteen altogether. The major's promised to give this little beauty to the doctor."

And still the day's tale of triumph was not concluded. At seven o'clock the infantry battalion that had been held in reserve made a combined dash with troops of the Division on the left, and drove the tired dispirited Huns out of Sailly-Saillisel, another 2000 yards on.

Our batteries fired harassing crashes all through the night, and were warned to be ready to move first thing in the morning.



XI. ON THE HEELS OF THE BOCHE

Sept. 2: The side-spectacle that struck me most when I walked by myself through Combles was that of a solitary Royal Engineer playing a grand piano in the open street, with not a soul to listen to him. The house from which the instrument had been dragged was smashed beyond repair; save for some scrapes on the varnish the piano had suffered no harm, and its tone was agreeable to the ear. The pianist possessed technique and played with feeling and earnestness, and it seemed weirdly strange to hear Schumann's "Slumber Song" in such surroundings. But the war has produced more impressive incongruities than that.

The Brigade settled itself in the neighbourhood of Fregicourt. The —st Infantry Brigade was already established there in a trench; and the first job of work that fell to me was to answer the F.O.O. of another Artillery brigade who had rung up Infantry Brigade Headquarters. "Huns are moving along the road in X 429 b and c," said a voice. "Can you turn one of my batteries on to them?" Our batteries were not yet in position, but I saw, a couple of hundred yards away, two batteries whose trails were lowered; so I hurried across and gave them the target and the map spotting, and before long 18-pdr. shells were on their way to ginger up the aforementioned unlucky Huns. An aeroplane fight within decent observing distance aroused much more interest. No decisive result was obtained, but the enemy airman was finally driven away in full retreat towards his own lines. "Jerry isn't as cheeky as he used to be in Flanders last year, is he?" said Wilde to me. "It must be true that he's running short of 'planes."

The problem of the last few days had been the water supply for the horses. Although the sappers were hard at work in Combles, there was as yet no water within five miles of the batteries. The Boche by smashing all the power-pumps had seen to that; and the waggon lines were too far in rear for moving warfare. "We shall be all right when we get to the canal," had been everybody's consolatory pronouncement. "The horses won't be so hard worked then."

We were still in the area of newly-erected Boche huts, and Headquarters lay that night without considerable hardship. Manning, our mess waiter, a fish-monger by trade, had discovered a large quantity of dried fish left by the departing enemy, and the men enjoyed quite a feast; the sudden appearance in new boots of ninety per cent of them could be similarly explained. The modern soldier is not squeamish in these matters. I overheard one man, who had accepted a pair of leggings from a prisoner, reply to a comrade's mild sneer, "Why not?... I'd take anything from these devils. There was a big brute this morning: I had a good mind to take his false teeth—they had so much gold in 'em." Which rather suggested that he was "telling the tale" to his unsympathetic listener.

Late that night orders informed us that on the morrow we should come under another Divisional Artillery. Our own infantry were being pulled out of the line to bring themselves up to strength. The enemy were still withdrawing, and fresh British troops had to push ahead so as to allow him no respite. A Battery had already advanced their guns another 2000 yards, and through the night fired hotly on the road and approaches east of the canal. Next morning Major Mallaby-Kelby was instructed to reconnoitre positions within easy crossing distance of the canal, but not to move the batteries until further orders came in. Bicycle orderlies chased down to the waggon lines to tell the grooms to bring up our horses. My groom, I remember, had trouble on the road, and did not arrive soon enough for the impatient major; so I borrowed the adjutant's second horse as well as his groom. A quarter of a mile on the way I realised that I had forgotten my box-respirator; the only solution of the difficulty was to take the groom's, and send him back to remain in possession of mine until I returned; and all that morning and afternoon I was haunted by the fear that I might perhaps be compelled to put on the borrowed article.

The reconnoitring party consisted of Major Mallaby-Kelby, Major Veasey, Major Bullivant, young Beale of A Battery, and Kelly and Wood of D Battery, who loaded themselves with a No. 4 Director, the tripod instrument with which lines of fire are laid out.

When we approached the highest point along the main road leading east, Major Mallaby-Kelby sent back word that the road was under observation; we must come along in couples, two hundred yards between each couple. The Boche was sending over some of the high-bursting shells which he uses so much for ranging purposes, but we were not greatly troubled. We dipped into a slippery shell-scarred track that wound through a hummocky copse, swung southwards along a sunken road, and then made due east again, drawing nearer a dense forest of stubby firs that stretched far as eye could see. This was the wood into which our infantry had pushed fighting patrols on Sept. 1. Every few yards we met grim reminders of the bloody fighting that had made the spot a memorable battle-ground. My horse shied at two huddled grey forms lying by the roadside—bayoneted Huns. I caught a glimpse of one dead German, half covered by bushes; his face had been blown away. Abandoned heaps of Boche ammunition; fresh gaping shell-holes; one ghastly litter of mutilated horses and men, and a waggon rolled into the ditch, revealed the hellish execution of our artillery. The major called a halt and said we would leave our horses there.

We struck north-east, away from the forest, and, reaching the cross-roads on top of the crest, gazed across the great wide valley that from the canal sloped up to the blue haze of heights still held by the enemy. Through the glasses one saw the yellows and greens of bracken and moss and grass in the middle distances. "We're getting into country now that hasn't seen much shelling," remarked the major with satisfaction. But the glasses also showed slopes seared and seamed with twisting trenches and tawny waggon tracks.

Our path lay along a road bordered by evenly-planted, broken and lifeless poplars. The major called out for us to advance in single file, at intervals of twenty-five yards. When high-velocity shells struck the ground a hundred yards short of the road and a hundred yards beyond it, we all of us dropped unquestioningly into the narrow freshly-dug trench that ran at the foot of the poplars. About five hundred yards on, to the left of the road, we passed a shell-blasted grove that hung above a melancholy rubbish-heap of broken bricks and shattered timber.

"Government Farm!" called Major Mallaby-Kelby, with an informative gesture.

Government Farm was a datum point that batteries had mercilessly pasted two days before.

"Government Farm!" repeated Major Bullivant, who walked behind Mallaby-Kelby.

"Government Farm!" echoed Major Veasey, with out-stretched arm; and I, in my turn, passed the word to Beale.

Young Beale was in exuberant spirits. He not only turned his head and shouted "Government Farm!" with a parade-ground volume of voice; he followed with the clarion demand of "Why don't you acknowledge orders?" to Kelly, who was so surprised that he nearly dropped the Director before responding with a grin, and thrusting out his arm in the way laid down in the gun-drill book for sergeants to acknowledge gunnery orders passed along the line of guns.

We came to another large wood that stretched down towards the canal, and, once more in a party, moved along the southern edge of it. An infantry captain, belonging to the Division we were now working under, stepped from beneath the trees and saluted. "We're reconnoitring for battery positions," said Major Mallaby-Kelby, answering the salute. "Can you tell me how the front line runs now?"

"We're sending two patrols through the wood to the canal now," replied the captain, "The Boche hadn't entirely cleared out three-quarters of an hour ago."

"We may as well go on," said Major Mallaby-Kelby, after three or four minutes further conversation. "The Boche must be over the canal by now ... and we have to select battery positions as soon as possible. We don't want to bring the guns up in the dark." There was a general feeling for revolvers, and we entered the wood and followed a bridle-path. I could imagine that wood in the pleasant careless days of peace, a proper wood for picnics and nutting expeditions. Ripening blackberries even now loaded the bramble bushes, but the foul noxiousness of gas shells had made them uneatable. The heavy sickly smell of phosgene pervaded the close air; no birds fluttered and piped among the upper branches. The heavy steel helmet caused rills of sweat to run down the cheeks.

We forged ahead past a spacious glade where six tracks met. "There's a hut we could use for a mess," said Major Veasey. "Mark it up, Kelly; and look at that barrel, it would be big enough for you to sleep in." Snapped-off branches, and holes torn in the leaf-strewn ground, showed that the guns had not neglected this part of the wood; and in several places we noted narrow ruts a yard or so in length, caused by small-calibre projectiles. "Ricochet shots from whizz-bangs fired at very close range," commented Major Bullivant.

After certain hesitations as to the right track to follow, we reached the north-western edge of the wood. Major Mallaby-Kelby refused to allow us to leave cover, and we knelt hidden among the prickly bushes. "For heaven's sake don't show these white breeches, Veasey," laughed Major Bullivant.

A village nestled at the foot of the slope. Not a sign of life in it now, although the Boche was certainly in possession the day before. "There are some Boches in that trench near the top of the slope," said Major Veasey suddenly. "Can you see them? Eight degrees, two o'clock, from the farm chimney near the quarry." I looked hard and counted three steel helmets. "We could have some good shooting if we had the guns up," added the major regretfully. A Boche 5.9 was firing consistently and accurately into the valley beneath us. I say accurately, because the shells fell round and about one particular spot. "Don't see what he's aiming at," said Major Bullivant shortly. "He's doing no damage.... He can't be observing his fire."

There was a discussion as to whether an 18-pdr. battery placed near a long bank on the slope would be able to clear the wood at 3000 yards' range, and Major Mallaby-Kelby and Major Bullivant slipped out to inspect a possible position at the corner where the edge of the wood curved north-east. Then Major Mallaby-Kelby decided that it was time to return; and on the way back Major Veasey said he would be content to bring his 4.5 how. battery into the glade where the six tracks met. "Might as well make us trench mortars," growled Kelly to me. "We shan't be more than a thousand yards from the Boche."

Just before we came out of the wood Major Mallaby-Kelby called to me to chalk the sign of Brigade H.Q. on an elaborate hut that stood forty yards off the track—a four-roomed hut, new and clean. It was not pleasant, however, to find two dead Boche horses lying in the doorway.

An enemy bombardment started as we left the wood. Major Veasey and his party went off immediately towards where the horses were waiting. The other two majors, still seeking battery positions, bore away to the south, and I followed them. A 4.2 battery suddenly switched its fire on to the strip of ground we were crossing, and we ran hurriedly for shelter to a trench that lay handy. Shells whistled over our heads, and we panted and mopped our brows while taking a breather.

"No wonder he's shelling here," exclaimed Major Mallaby-Kelby. "The —rd" [our companion Brigade] "have a battery here.... Look at those dead horses ... three, five, seven—why, there are twelve of 'em."

"Yes, sir," I put in, "that happened yesterday when they were bringing up ammunition."

We moved up the trench, but we seemed to draw fire as if we had magnetic properties. "We'll move back again," remarked Major Mallaby-Kelby with energy, and he started off, Major Bullivant following.

We had gone about fifty yards when Major Bullivant turned swiftly, gave me a push, and muttered "Gas!" We ran back to where we had been before, and looked round for Major Mallaby-Kelby. "Damn it," he said abruptly when he came up, sneezing, "I forgot to bolt. I stood still getting my box-respirator on."

When the shelling died down we walked farther along the trench, which turned westwards. Excellent positions for the three 18-pdr. batteries were found not far from the trench; and returning again towards the wood for our horses, we chanced upon a deep dug-out that Major Mallaby-Kelby sent me down to explore. "Don't touch any wires or pegs," he said warningly; "the Hun may have left some booby-traps." The dug-out was thirty feet deep, and had only one entrance. But I found recesses with good wire beds, and a place for the telephonists. "We'll make that Headquarters," decided the major, and I chalked out our claim accordingly.

When we got back to the batteries we found that orders for the move had come in; the teams were up; and after a very welcome cup of tea the journey to the new positions was started. Wilde, the signalling officer, and myself led the way with the Headquarters' vehicles, and followed a beautifully hidden track that ran through the wood and came out a hundred yards from our selected dug-out. Three red glares lit up the sky behind the heights held by the Boche. "By Jove," said Wilde, "he must be going back; he's burning things."

My day's work was not yet ended. Our own infantry had been brought up again, and it was imperative that we should be in early communication with the —rd Brigade, the Brigade commanded by the forceful young brigadier who had discussed artillery arrangements with the colonel for the operation in which Judd and Pottinger had done so well with their forward section. There was a shortage of telephone wire, and at 8.15 P.M. Wilde's line had not been laid. Major Mallaby-Kelby decided that the only alternative was for me to go and report to the brigadier, whose headquarters were not far from the road leading to Senate Farm. It was very dark, and the fact that the whole way was under Boche observation made it impossible for me to use my torch. Shells were falling about the cross-roads—and I have undertaken more agreeable walks. I went down into the Infantry brigade signal-hut first to find whether we had at last got a line through. We hadn't. When I asked for the General's mess, the signalling sergeant conducted me along a passage that in places was not three feet high. Climbing up a steep uneven stairway, I found myself at the top looking into the mess with only my head and shoulders exposed to view. The General was examining a map. His brigade-major, a V.C. captain with gentle eyes and a kindly charming manner; his staff captain, a brisk hard-bitten soldier, with a reputation for never letting the Brigade go hungry; the signal officer, the intelligence officer, and other junior members of the staff, were seated round the same table. "What about the —nd Brigade?" I heard the General say, mentioning our Brigade.

"We haven't heard from them yet," observed the brigade-major.

"I'm from the —nd Brigade," I said loudly.

There were startled ejaculations and a general looking round to the spot where the voice came from.

"Hallo, Jack-in-the-box!" exclaimed the brigadier, staring at my head and shoulders, "where did you come from?"

I explained, and the General, laughing, said, "Well, you deserve a drink for that.... Come out of your box and we'll give you some targets.... I didn't know any one could get in that way."

Before I went away the tactical situation was explained to me. I was given the points the Infantry would like us to fire upon during the night. Also I got my drink.

The last thing Major Mallaby-Kelby said before going off to sleep was, "Extraordinary long time since we met any civilians. Haven't seen any since July."



XII. THE MAJOR'S LOST PIPE

Sept. 4: "A full mail-bag and a bottle of white wine are the best spirit revivers for war-worn fighting-men," said Major Mallaby-Kelby contentedly, gathering up his own big batch of letters from the one and sipping a glass of the other.

During two days Brigade Headquarters and the four batteries had received piles of belated letters and parcels, and there was joy in the land. I remember noting the large number of little, local, weekly papers—always a feature of the men's mail; and it struck me that here the countryman was vouchsafed a joy unknown to the Londoner. Both could read of world-doings and national affairs in the big London dailies; but the man from the shires, from the little country towns, from the far-off villages of the British Isles, could hug to himself the weekly that was like another letter from home—with its intimate, sometimes trivial, details of persons and places so familiar in the happy uneventful days before the war.

As for the white wine, that did not greatly interest the other members of Brigade Headquarters mess. But the diary contained the bald entry, "At 9.30 P.M. the whisky ran out," in the space headed Aug. 28; and none had come to us since. People at home are inclined to believe that the whisky scarcity, and the shortage of cakes and biscuits, and chocolate and tobacco, scarcely affected officers' messes in France. It is true that recognised brands of whisky appeared on the Expeditionary Force Canteens' price-list at from 76 to 80 francs a dozen, but there were days and days when none was to be bought, and no lime-juice and no bottled lemon-squash either. Many a fight in the September-October push was waged by non-teetotal officers, who had nothing with which to disguise the hideous taste of chlorinate of lime in the drinking water. Ah well!

There was also the serious matter of Major Mallaby-Kelby's pipe. It became a burning topic on Sept. 4. "I must have dropped it yesterday when we tumbled into that gas," he told me dolefully. "I mustn't lose that pipe. It was an original Dunhill, and is worth three or four pounds.... I'll offer a reward for it.... Will you come with me to look for it?" And he fixed his monocle and gazed at me compellingly.

"Does the offer of a reward refer to me, sir?" I inquired with all the brightness at my command. For answer the major commenced putting on his steel helmet and box-respirator.

It was fitting that I should go. I had accompanied the major on all his excursions, and my appearance over the horizon had become a sure warning to the batteries that the major was not far off. "Gunner Major and Gunner Minor" some one had christened us.

The major conducted the search with great verve. We encountered a gunner chopping wood, and he told him the story of the pipe. "I'll give twenty-five francs to any one who brings it to me," he concluded. The gunner saluted and continued to chop wood.

"Rather a big reward!" I remarked as we walked on.

"Do you think twenty-five too much? Shall I make it fifteen?"

"You've committed yourself now," I answered solemnly.

Our arrival at the trench in which we had sheltered the day before coincided with the whizz-phutt of a 4.2 dud. "I shall be sorry if I get you killed looking for my pipe," said the major cheerfully. We waited for the next shell, which exploded well behind us, and then hastened to the spot where our quest was really to commence. Four gunners belonging to the —rd Brigade stood idly in the trench. The major stopped and looked down upon them. He addressed himself directly to a wall-faced, emotionless kind of man whose head and shoulders showed above the trench top.

"I was down here yesterday," began the major, "and lost my pipe. It was a very valuable pipe, a pipe I prize very much. I think it must be somewhere in this trench...."

The wall-faced man remained stolidly silent.

"I want to get it back again," went on the major; "and if any of you fellows find it and bring it to me—I'm Major Mallaby-Kelby, commanding the —nd Brigade—I'll give a reward of twenty-five francs."

"Is this it, sir?" said the wall-faced man in matter-of-fact tones, whipping out of his pocket a thin-stemmed pipe with a shapely, beautifully-polished bowl.

"By Jove, that's it!" exclaimed the major, taken aback by the swift unexpectedness of the recovery. "Yes, by Jove, that's it," he continued, his face lighting up. He took the pipe and rubbed the bowl affectionately with the palm of his hand.

"Twenty-five francs reward!" I murmured softly.

"Yes, that's right," he said briskly, and began turning out his pockets. Three maps, a pocket-handkerchief, some ration biscuits, and a note-case with nothing in it. "You must lend me twenty-five francs," he declared masterfully.

The wall-faced gunner accepted the money without any sign of repressed emotion, and saluted smartly. The smiles of the other men broadened into grins as the major and myself set our faces homewards.

There were more serious matters to consider when we got back. D Battery had had two men killed by shell fire in the wood; the other batteries had had to send away a dozen men between them, overcome by gas; the Infantry brigadier wished to discuss fresh plans for hastening the enemy's departure from the neighbourhood of the canal.

In the afternoon I accompanied the major on a round of the batteries. Nests of Boche machine-gunners were still checking the advance of our infantry—they had fought heroically these fellows; but slowly, methodically, implacably the work of rooting them out was going on. Our farther advance was only a matter of hours now. "We're ordered not to risk too many casualties on this front," the Infantry brigadier had told the major. "The enemy will have to fall back when certain movements north and south of us are completed.... But we mustn't let him rest." Beale of A Battery had returned from the most crowded glorious experience of his young life. He had taken a gun forward to support two companies of the infantry who were striving to establish posts on the eastern side of the canal. Their progress was stayed by machine-guns and snipers, and the casualties were beginning to make the company commanders doubt if the operation was worth while. Beale reconnoitred with two platoon commanders and located the machine-guns, returned and brought his gun up, and from an open position fired over four hundred rounds; and afterwards went forward in front of the advanced posts to make sure that the machine-guns had been definitely put out of action. This brilliant effort enabled the infantry to move forward afterwards without a casualty. Dusty, flushed with the thrill of what he had been through, Beale knew that he had done fine work, and was frankly pleased by the kind things said about him.

The following day produced fresh excitements. Major Simpson had gone down to B Battery's waggon line to secure something like a night's rest—although I might say that after the spring of 1917 the Boche night-bombers saw to it that our waggon lines were no longer the havens of peace they used to be. Disaster followed. The Boche drenched the battery position with gas. Captain Denny, who had come up from the waggon line to relieve the major, was caught while working out the night-firing programme. Overbury, young Bushman, and another officer were also gassed; and eight men besides. C Battery were victims as well, and Henry and a number of the gunners had been removed to the Casualty Clearing Station.

And before lunch-time a briefly-worded order was received directing Major Mallaby-Kelby to report immediately to a Field Artillery Brigade of another Division. Orders are apt to arrive in this sudden peremptory fashion. Within an hour and a half the major had bidden good-bye to us and ridden off, a mess cart following with his kit. And Major Veasey came to reign in his stead.

Major Mallaby-Kelby left one souvenir, a bottle of the now famous white wine which had got mislaid—at least the cook explained it that way. The omission provided Brigade Headquarters with the wherewithal to drink the major's health.

At nine o'clock that night I stood with Major Veasey outside our headquarters dug-out. A mizzling rain descended. Five substantial fires were burning beyond the heights where the Boche lay. "What's the odds on the war ending by Christmas?" mused the major. "... I give it until next autumn," he added.

A battery of 60-pounders had come up close by. Their horses, blowing hard, had halted in front of our dug-out half an hour before, and the drivers were waiting orders to pull the guns the final three hundred yards into position. Two specks of lights showed that a couple of them were smoking cigarettes. "Look at those drivers," I said. "They've been here all this time and haven't dismounted yet."

The major stepped forward and spoke to one of the men. "Get off, lad, and give the old horse a rest. He needs it."

"Some of these fellows will never learn horse management though the war lasts ten years," he said resignedly as he went downstairs.

I remember our third and last night in that dug-out, because the air below had got so vitiated that candles would only burn with the feeblest of glimmers.



XIII. NURLU AND LIERAMONT

Sept. 6: The expected orders for the Brigade's farther advance arrived at 2 P.M., and by eight o'clock Wilde and myself had selected a new headquarters in a trench south of the wood. A tarpaulin and pit-prop mess had been devised: I had finished the Brigade's official War Diary for August; dinner was on the way; and we awaited the return of Major Veasey from a conference with the Infantry brigadier.

The major came out of the darkness saying, "We'll have dinner at once and then move immediately. There's a show to-morrow, and we must be over the canal before daybreak.... Heard the splendid news?... We've got right across the Drocourt Queant line.... That's one reason why we are pushing here to-morrow."

We had a four-miles' march before us, and Manning and Meddings, our mess waiter and cook, farther down the trench, could be heard grumbling at the prospect of another packing-up, and a search in the dark for fresh quarters. "We always lose knives and forks and crockery when we move like this," Manning was saying in his heavy-dragoon voice.

"You and Wilde had better look for a headquarters somewhere near the cross-roads at Nurlu," the major told me. "The adjutant and myself will find where the batteries are and join you later."

There was a twenty minutes' delay because in the dark the G.S. waggon had missed us and vanished round the corner of the wood. As we moved off I felt a wet muzzle against my hand, and, stooping, perceived a dog that looked like a cross between an Airedale and a Belgian sheep-dog. "Hullo, little fellow!" I said, patting him. He wagged his tail and followed me.

The German shelling had died down, and we hoped for an uneventful journey. But night treks across ground that has been fought over usually test one's coolness and common-sense. The Boche had blown up the bridges over the canal, and descending the slope we had to leave the road and follow a track that led to an Engineers' bridge, so well hidden among trees that the enemy artillery had not discovered it. But it was a long time before our little column completed the crossing. A battery were ahead, and between them and us came a disjointed line of infantry waggons—horses floundering in the mud, men with torches searching for shell-holes and debris that had to be avoided. Only one vehicle was allowed on the bridge at a time, and a quarter to eleven came before the six mules scrambled the G.S. waggon over. The real difficulty, however, was to decide upon the track to take the other side of the canal. Maps were useless; these were tracks unknown to the topographers. Not one of them followed the general direction in which I believed Nurlu to be. I resolved to take the track that went south-east, and hoped to come upon one that would turn due east. Heavy shells, one every four minutes, rumbled high overhead, and crashed violently somewhere south of us. "They are shooting into Moislains," said Wilde. We trudged along hopefully.

The dog was still with us, running in small circles round me. "That must be the sheep-dog part of him," I said to Wilde. "He's a bit thin, but he seems a wiry little chap."

The looked-for track due east came when I began to think that we were drawing too near to where the big shells were falling. After half a mile we reached a metalled road; the track we had passed along went over and beyond it. The point to be decided now was whether to go straight on or to turn left along the road. Not a soul, not a single vehicle in sight; it was hard to believe that three Divisions were to make a big attack on the morrow. I halted the waggons on the road, and turned to Wilde. "Let's send Sergeant Starling (the signalling sergeant) to find where this track leads to. We'll walk up the road and find some one who can show it us on the map. There are bound to be dug-outs in this bank."

We walked for half a mile, meeting no one. The dog and an orderly accompanied us. In the distance my ear caught a familiar sound—the clip-clop of horses trotting. It came nearer and nearer. Then we saw a horseman, wearing the Artillery badge, leading a light draught horse.

"What battery do you belong to?" I asked, stopping him.

"B, sir."

"Where are you going now?"

"A shell came, sir, and hit our waggon. My traces were broke, and I'm going back to the waggon line, sir."

"Where is B Battery?"

"Up this road, sir, and I think you take a turning on the left, but I can't quite remember, sir; we had a bit of a mix-up."

"Bring up the waggons," I told the orderly. "We're on the right road. If Sergeant Starling isn't back, leave some one behind to bring him along."

Before long a jingling and a creaking told us that our carts were close at hand. We walked on, and, reaching a cross-roads, waited to shout for those behind to keep straight on. Half a minute afterwards I heard my name called. A single light shone out from a dug-out in the bank.

It was Garstin of C Battery who had hailed me. "Major Veasey is here with Major Bartlett," he said, coming towards us. The two majors were sitting in a dug-out no bigger than a trench-slit. "What do you think of my quarters?" smiled Major Bartlett. "Sorry I can't ask you to have a drink. Our mess cart hasn't arrived yet."

"We've found B and C, so far," interposed Major Veasey, puffing at his pipe, "and I must find the —th Infantry Brigade before I finish to-night.... This road takes you direct to Nurlu, you know."

Wilde and I and the headquarters waggons resumed our march. We had reached a sunken portion of the road, when above us began the deep steady drone of Boche aeroplanes. We halted the waggons.

A wait, during which Lizzie, the big mare, whinnied, and we looked up and strained our ears to follow the path of the 'planes. Then, farther away than the whirring in the skies had led us to expect, came the ear-stabbing crack of the bombs. One!—two!—three!—four!—five!—six! in as quick succession as rifle-shots. "Damn 'em," said Wilde apprehensively. "I hope they don't get any of our horses."