ere being run up,
and I was to be quartered in the same hut as the field cashier, which
was thus to be a kind of union temple for the service of God and the
service of Mammon. I looked down into the clay pit and saw the men
working at my home, but I knew that I should probably not occupy it. I
determined to go forward to our Battle Headquarters, prepared for a
missionary journey, and find out when the attack was going to be made.
I put into my pack some bully-beef, hardtack, tinned milk and other
forms of nourishment, as well as a razor, a towel and various toilet
necessaries. On the other side of the road, the signallers had their
horse-lines, and our transports were near-by. I got my side-car (p. 305)
and, bidding good-bye to my friends, left for Inchy. We passed down
the road to Queant, where we saw the wounded in the field ambulance,
and from there started off through Pronville to Inchy Station. The
roads as usual were crowded, and the dust from passing lorries was
very unpleasant. We were going through the valley by Inchy Copse when
we suddenly heard a loud crash behind us which made my driver stop. I
asked him what he was about, and said, "That was one of our guns,
there is nothing to be alarmed at." "Guns!" he said, "I know the sound
of a shell when I hear it. You may like shells but I don't. I'm going
back." I said, "You go ahead, if I had a revolver with me, I would
shoot you for desertion from the front line. That was only one of our
guns." He looked round and said, "You call that a gun? Look there." I
turned and sure enough, about a hundred feet away in the middle of the
road was the smoke of an exploded shell. "Well," I said, "you had
better go on or there will be another one pretty soon, and it may get
us." With extraordinary speed we hurried to our destination, where I
left the car, taking my pack with me. I told the driver, much to his
relief, that he could go home, and that when I wanted the car again I
would send for it.

The quarry was, as I have said, our Battle Headquarters, and here in
the deep dugouts which I had visited previously I found our staff hard
at work. They told me that this was "Y" day, and that zero hour when
the barrage would start was at 5.20 the next morning. At that hour we
were to cross the Canal and then press on into the country beyond. We
had a two battalion front. The 4th and 14th Battalions were to make
the attack, and be followed up by the other battalions in the 1st and