.8. Can you turn your guns on to
'em?" I looked at the map co-ordinates he had given, and rang through
to the batteries.

4.30 P.M.: Pretty definite signs now that the enemy was coming on. A
5.9 had made a hole a hundred yards from where Headquarter horse lines
had been staked out. Another had crashed among the trees that sheltered
our mess, and a branch, after being jerked yards high in the air, had
fallen plunk through the cook's bed. And they were not long-range
shells either. Also, there had been seven shots from the most wicked,
the most unsettling weapon in the Hun armoury--the 4.2 high-velocity
gun, that you don't hear until it is past you, so to speak. One shell
grazed the top of the office in which the doctor and myself were
sitting; another snapped off a tree-trunk like--well, as a 4.2 does
snap off a tree-trunk. Most ominous sign of all--when the seven shots
had been fired, three ugly-looking holes ringed themselves round the
colonel's hut. Next, a Hun aeroplane, with irritating sauciness,
circled above our camp, not more than five hundred feet up. Our
"Archies" made a lot of noise, and enjoyed their customary success: the
Hun airman sailed calmly back to his own lines.

6 P.M.: The adjutant of the R.H.A. Brigade came in to tell me that the
enemy were getting closer, and that the break-through on our right
admitted of no doubt. I despatched written orders to the battery waggon
lines for gun teams and limbers to be brought up to within a thousand
yards of the guns.

7 P.M.: The colonel was back. A battery that had only reached France
three days before had been put under his command, to compensate for the
loss of seven guns from A and C batteries. It was getting dark, but the
officers at the O.P.'s in front of the wood were still able to pick up
moving targets, and many Germans were being accounted for.

The colonel found time to mention more episodes of the March
Twenty-first fighting. "Every bridge over the canal was blown up by
6.30 this morning," he said; "but, do you know that D Battery's cook,
who had got left behind last night, and seems to have wandered about a
good deal, did not come over until nine o'clock this morning? No wonder
we retired in comfort."

The brigadier had told him more of what had happened to the --rd, our
companion Divisional Artillery Brigade. "Their C Battery put up a
wonderful fight--got infantry and trench mortars to help, and didn't
come away until 10 P.M., after putting t