(p. 183)
climbed higher and higher like skylarks into the wide vault of heaven.

On the first of June, we were ordered back to the line, and our
Divisional Headquarters was to be divided. The General and staff were
to be at the advanced position in the huts and dugouts on the La
Targette road, and the non-combatant officers were to be billetted
near Villers au Bois in Chateau d'Acq, a comfortable modern house with
a large garden on one side and a pleasant tree-covered hill at the
back. Here, to my surprise and delight, I found myself in possession
of a large front room with furniture in it that appeared almost
gorgeous. I had one comfortable night's sleep in it, but alas only
one. On the next evening, when the full moon was shining with that
fateful power which she has of turning night into day and of guiding
the flight of hostile bombers, we were sitting smoking our cigars
after dinner at the artillery headquarters in the La Targette road,
when suddenly we heard the pulsating buzzing of a German plane. At
once someone called out, "A Boche plane, put out the lights." In an
instant the lights were out, but the fatal moonlight shone with clear
and cruel lustre. There was a huge crash, then another, then another,
then another, and someone said, "It has discharged its load." For a
few moments we waited in silence, then we heard the sound of voices
and men calling for help. I went across the open to the huts where the
staff officers and the clerks lived. The German plane kept buzzing
round and round at a low altitude, the observer evidently trying to
find out what mischief he had done. To my dismay, I found that sixteen
persons including the A.D.M.S. and the Assistant to the A.P.M., had
been wounded, two of them fatally. We could not use the lights in
attending to the wounded for the German airman was on the watch, and
it was not until he went away that we could get ambulances to carry
them off.

The General did not think it was worth while to risk a second attack
by remaining at the place, so, in the middle of the night, with great
dispatch the headquarters was moved back to the Chateau, and instead
of my occupying the mahogany bed in the front room, I found myself on
the floor of one of the huts in the garden. The General quite rightly
and naturally taking to himself the bed which I had left.

Chateau d'Acq was for many weeks and at different times our comfortable
and delightful home. There were many Nissen huts round