o fill his, a big shell landed in the garden next to us,
and he, catching up his empty bottle, ran off saying, "I'm not thirsty
any longer, I don't want any water."

After their rest and refreshment, the company went over to a sunken
road on the east side of the village. It was now getting very chilly
and the daylight was dying rapidly. From the ground above the road one
could see in the distance the spires of Cambrai, and in some fields to
the southeast of us, with my glasses I could distinctly see numbers of
little grey figures going into trenches, apparently with the idea of
getting round to the south of our village on our exposed flank. I met
a young officer of the machine-gun battalion, and lending him my
glasses pointed out where the Germans were massing. He got the men of
his section and took up a forward position along a ditch which ran at
right angles to the sunken road. Here too were some of the companies
of the 5th Battalion. They had hardly got into position when the
Germans shelled the road we had been on, most unmercifully. I took
refuge with a number of the men of the 5th Battalion in a garden,
beside a brick building which had been used by the German troops as a
wash-house and which was particularly malodorous. Two or three shells
dropped in the orchard, breaking the trees, and we had to keep down on
the ground while the shelling lasted. I could not help thinking of the
warning the 2nd Battalion officer had given us about the situation on
our right. It did seem pretty bad, because, until the arrival of the
7th and 8th Battalions, our right flank was exposed, and the enemy
might have gone round to the southeast of the village and attacked us
in the rear. When things settled down, I went back up the sunken road,
and, as I did so, thought I saw some men going into a gateway in the
main street of the village. I made my way to the open trenches where
the Colonel of the 5th Battalion had his headquarters, and I determined
to spend the night there, so they kindly provided me with a German
overcoat. I was just settling down to sleep when a runner came up and
reported that some men were wounded and were asking the way to the
dressing station. Someone said they thought the M.O. had made his
headquarters in the village. Then I remembered having seen some men
enter a gateway in the street as I passed, so two of us started off
to find out if this was the regimental aid post. The night was (p. 314)
absolutely blac