to be
able to sit still. I used to feel that when we were getting shelled in
the reserve trenches outside Vermelles. I felt it before we went over
the parapets at Loos, but I never felt it so much as on the last two
days in that cellar. I had simply to set my teeth and take a pull on
myself. Peter had gone on a crazy errand which I scarcely believed
could come off. There were no signs of Sandy; somewhere within a
hundred yards he was fighting his own battles, and I was tormented by
the thought that he might get jumpy again and wreck everything. A
strange Companion brought us food, a man who spoke only Turkish and
could tell us nothing; Hussin, I judged, was busy about the horses. If
I could only have done something to help on matters I could have
scotched my anxiety, but there was nothing to be done, nothing but wait
and brood. I tell you I began to sympathize with the general behind
the lines in a battle, the fellow who makes the plan which others
execute. Leading a charge can be nothing like so nerve-shaking a
business as sitting in an easy-chair and waiting on the news of it.

It was bitter cold, and we spent most of the day wrapped in our
greatcoats and buried deep in the straw. Blenkiron was a marvel. There
was no light for him to play Patience by, but he never complained. He
slept a lot of the time, and when he was awake talked as cheerily as if
he were starting out on a holiday. He had one great comfort, his
dyspepsia was gone. He sang hymns constantly to the benign Providence
that had squared his duodenum.

My only occupation was to listen for the guns. The first day after
Peter left they were very quiet on the front nearest us, but in the
late evening they started a terrific racket. The next day they never
stopped from dawn to dusk, so that it reminded me of that tremendous
forty-eight hours before Loos. I tried to read into this some proof
that Peter had got through, but it would not work. It looked more like
the opposite, for this desperate hammering must mean that the frontal
assault was still the Russian game.

Two or three times I climbed on the housetop for fresh air. The day was
foggy and damp, and I could see very little of the countryside.
Transport was still bumping southward along the road to the Palantuken,
and the slow wagon-loads of wounded returning. One thing I noticed,
however; there was a perpetual coming and going between the house and
the city. Motors and mounted messeng