uddenly nipped my elbow. I had missed him
during the last two hours. "Say, son," he said, "come and take a walk
along the line: I've happened on a hut down along there with a fire in
it. Belongs to some sappers. Come and take a warm."

"Can't," I replied, shaking my head; "I'd like to, but I shall have to
be like the Boy who stood on the Burning Deck to-night. I must stop on
this spot until the colonel comes across."

The doctor toddled off, and I got the telephonist to ring through to
the colonel. "The enemy seems to be waiting. He's not troubling our
infantry," he informed me, and then added, "Has the kit been got away
from the quarry yet?"

I made sure that the telephonist was ringing up each battery every ten
minutes to see that the lines were in working order, and then climbed
up the railway bank and walked over to inquire if the brigade-major had
any news. He hadn't. "And try and keep in touch with us on this line,"
he added. "It's the only way we have at the moment of speaking to your
Brigade."

2 A.M.: The best news of the night. The sergeant-major had crossed the
bridge. Our precious kit would be borne to safety! At 3.15 A.M. he
passed again, triumphant, the Maltese cart in tow as well. Hurrah! Let
the war now proceed!

At 4.30 the colonel telephoned that the infantry brigadier and himself
were about to cross the canal. The telephone wire could be cut, and I
was to meet him at the railway bridge in twenty minutes' time.

"The infantry are crossing the canal at six o'clock," he said when he
rode up and called my name through the mist. "Batteries will start to
withdraw to their next positions at 6.30. Each battery will withdraw a
section (two guns) at a time; and the last section must not pull out
until the preceding section is in action at the new position." He gave
me the map co-ordinates of the new positions, and rode off to visit the
battery commanders.

6 A.M.: Extraordinary, it was to be another rainless hazy morning. How
the weather always assists the Boche! In the grey gloom on top of the
embankment I could see forms moving--our own infantry, marching
steadily, neither cheerful nor depressed, just moving, impersonal
forms. "What's happened?" I asked a subaltern, keeping time with him as
he marched.

"We're going back to Rouez Wood," he answered. "The Westshires are
lining up now behind the canal."

"Are they going to hold it?" I asked.

"Don't know," was the reply; "only know our orders."