ilian
boot and a decayed bowler hat that for weeks had lain neglected and
undisturbed in one of the rough tracks leading to the front
line--typical of the unchanging restfulness of this part of the front.

Suddenly the door opened, to admit Colonel ----, C.O. of the Infantry
Battalion who were our near neighbours in the quarry.

"Have you had the 'PREPARE FOR ATTACK'?" he asked abruptly as we held
ourselves to attention.

"No, sir," I replied, and moved to the telephone to ring up Divisional
Artillery Headquarters.

"Just come in," he said; and even as I asked exchange to put me through
to "D.A.," the brigade clerk came in with the telephoned warning that
we had talked about, expected, or refused to believe in ever since the
alarm order to move into the line a fortnight before.

The formal intimation was sent by wire to the batteries, and I
telephoned to find which battery the colonel was visiting and gave him
the news, which, according to our precise and well-thought-out scheme
of defence, was a preliminary warning not intended to interfere with
any work in hand.

Then the doctor and myself and the Divisional Artillery gas officer,
who had called in while on an inspecting tour, settled down to tea,
jam, and water-cress.

That night our dinner guest was the former captain of our 4.5 how.
battery, now in command of a heavy battery that had come into action
within a quarter of a mile of our H.Q. The "MAN BATTLE POSITIONS," the
order succeeding "PREPARE FOR ATTACK" in the defence programme, was not
expected that night, and we gossiped and talked war and new gunnery
devices much as usual. No story goes so well at mess as the account of
some fatuous muddle brought about by the administrative bewilderments
that are apparently inevitable in the monster armies of to-day. This
was one told with quiet relish by our guest that night:--

"You remember the ---- show?" he said. "A lot of stores were, of
course, lost in the scramble; and, soon after I joined my present
battery, I had to sit on an inquiry into the mysterious loss of six
waggons belonging to a 60-pounder battery. Two courts of inquiry had
already sat on the matter, and failed to trace the whereabouts of the
waggons, which had been reported in all sorts of places. At the third
inquiry a witness stated that the last place the waggons were seen at
before getting lost was such and such a place. A member of the court
asked casually whether any one had since visited