o let me know at
once." Then he turned to Wagstaffe, and asked the question which
always lurks furtively on the tongue of a commanding officer.

"Many--casualties?"

"'A' Company have caught it rather badly crossing the open. 'B' got
off lightly. Glen is commanding them now: Waddell was killed leading
his men in the rush to the final objective."

Colonel Kemp sighed.

"Another good boy gone--veteran, rather. I must write to his wife.
Fairly newly married, I fancy?"

"Four months," said Wagstaffe briefly.

"What was his Christian name, do you know?"

"Walter, I think, sir," said Cockerell.

Colonel Kemp, amid the stress of battle, found time to enter a note in
his pocket-diary to that effect.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, up in the line, 'A' Company were holding on grimly to what
are usually described as "certain advanced elements" of the village.

Village fighting is a confused and untidy business, but it possesses
certain redeeming features. The combatants are usually so inextricably
mixed up that the artillery are compelled to refrain from
participation. That comes later, when you have cleared the village of
the enemy, and his guns are preparing the ground for the inevitable
counter-attack.

So far 'A' Company had done nobly. From the moment when they had lined
up before Montauban in the gross darkness preceding yesterday's dawn
until the moment when Bobby Little led them in one victorious rush
into the outskirts of the village, they had never encountered a
setback. By sunset they had penetrated some way farther; now creeping
stealthily forward under the shelter of a broken wall to hurl bombs
into the windows of an occupied cottage; now climbing precariously to
some commanding position in order to open fire with a Lewis gun; now
making a sudden dash across an open space. Such work offered peculiar
opportunities to small and well-handled parties--opportunities of
which Bobby Little's veterans availed themselves right readily.

Angus M'Lachlan, for instance, accompanied by a small following
of seasoned experts, had twice rounded up parties of the enemy in
cellars, and had despatched the same back to Headquarters with his
compliments and a promise of more. Mucklewame and four men had bombed
their way along a communication trench leading to one of the side
streets of the village--a likely avenue for a counter-attack--and
having reached the end of the trench, had built up a sandbag