heir guns out of action. One
gunner did extraordinarily stout work. Unaided, and with a rifle, he
held up a Boche machine-gun party that had worked round on the
battery's left flank, and later, with three others, captured the
machine-gun. One Boche, who broke through, he chased over half the
country apparently, and shot him down. The amusing thing is that when
he had killed the Boche he searched his pockets, and found a cake,
addressed to a bombardier in another battery. The Huns had scuppered
this battery and ransacked their dug-outs. The bombardier was somewhat
surprised last night when the gunner handed him his lost cake."

This was a gunner who eventually was awarded the highest honour a
soldier can win.

8 P.M.: A dinner much disturbed by German artillery. They started a
tremendous shelling of the wood in which we were encamped. Salvos of
5.9's made deafening crashes among the trees, and the earth was shaken
by the heavier, more awe-inspiring "crump" of the 8-inch how. There was
now, too, a steady bombardment of Villequier Aumont, the village, a
mile and a half behind, in which the battery waggon lines had been
installed.

The colonel came to a rapid decision. "They'll make Villequier Aumont
and the wood too hot for waggon lines to-night," he remarked. "We'll
move them at once to the other side of Villequier Aumont. Dump them on
the roadside. You'd better go and see it carried out. Leave me two
cycle orderlies, and I'll stay with the Infantry Brigade. They have a
mined dug-out here."

So, for the second time in twenty-four hours, we did a night
retirement. Infantry were coming back along the road, and big shells
were falling at regular intervals.

Any amount of retreating traffic on the other side of Villequier
Aumont, but no signs of panic or confusion. A block caused by supply
lorries coming from the opposite direction threatened to hold up some
ambulance cars, but it was only momentary. Our little American doctor
did good work here, galloping off to halt the supply lorries and
raising Cain until the traffic sorted itself out.

I selected a field near the roadside for Headquarter waggon lines. A
stream ran conveniently by. The horses were watered and fed; our
Headquarter notice-board was duly affixed to a roadside tree; and the
doctor added to his previous achievement by tying a tarpaulin to the
side of the mess cart, so that "Swiffy," the doctor himself, and myself
had shelter when we lay down.

The mo