t as he poked his red face
and tousled grey hair from under his blankets. "They've started," he
muttered solemnly. "The old Hun always shells the back areas when he
attacks."

We got up slowly, and fastened boots and leggings. "I suppose we ought
to put on revolvers," he went on dubiously, and then added with sudden
warmth, "I hope he gets it in the neck to-day."

Our telephone pit in the cellar below the cafe was alive with industry.
Our batteries were not firing, but the colonel had already asked the
battery commanders whether any shells, particularly gas shells, had
come their way. A couple of 4.2's had landed close to C Battery, but
they seemed to be stray shots; it did not seem likely that the enemy
knew where the batteries were sited. The Boche bombardment continued.

After breakfast, a 5.9 exploding 200 yards from our cafe, blew out the
largest pane in the unshuttered window. Shells had dropped by now in
most spots around us; but the cross-roads remained untouched. A cyclist
orderly from our waggon line, two miles back, brought news that a direct
hit had blown the telephone cart to bits; fortunately, neither man nor
horse had been touched. The adjutant was outside exhorting four
infantry stragglers to try and find their units by returning to the
battle line. A Royal Fusilier, wounded in the head, had fainted while
waiting at the cross-roads for an ambulance; our cook had lifted him on
to a bench inside the cafe and was giving him tea. The colonel, who
remained in the mess, in telephone touch with the brigadier-general,
C.R.A., and the brigade-major, had never seemed so preoccupied. Days
afterwards, he confided to me that when the Hun bombardment started he
feared a repetition of the overpowering assault of March 21.

"They had tanks out to-day," a boy captain of infantry, his arm in a
sling, told me, as he climbed into a motor ambulance. "By Gad, I saw a
topping sight near Villers Bretonneux. The Boche attacked in force
there and pushed us back, and one of his old tanks came sailing merrily
on. But just over the crest, near a sunken road, was a single 18-pdr.;
it didn't fire until the Boche tank climbed into view on top of the
crest. Then they let him have it at about 100 yards' range. Best series
of upper-cuts I've ever seen. The old tank sheered off and must have
got it hot." I learnt afterwards that this was a single gun detachment
belonging to our companion brigade, who had been pushed forward as soon
as