e following night, Claude was sent back to Division
Head-quarters at Q-- with information the Colonel did not care to
commit to paper. He set off at ten o'clock, with Sergeant Hicks
for escort. There had been two days of rain, and the
communication trenches were almost knee-deep in water. About half
a mile back of the front line, the two men crawled out of the
ditch and went on above ground. There was very little shelling
along the front that night. When a flare went up, they dropped
and lay on their faces, trying, at the same time, to get a squint
at what was ahead of them.

The ground was rough, and the darkness thick; it was past
midnight when they reached the east-and-west road--usually full
of traffic, and not entirely deserted even on a night like this.
Trains of horses were splashing through the mud, with shells on
their backs, empty supply wagons were coming back from the front.
Claude and Hicks paused by the ditch, hoping to get a ride. The
rain began to fall with such violence that they looked about for
shelter. Stumbling this way and that, they ran into a big
artillery piece, the wheels sunk over the hubs in a mud-hole.

"Who's there?" called a quick voice, unmistakably British.

"American infantrymen, two of us. Can we get onto one of your
trucks till this lets up?"

"Oh, certainly! We can make room for you in here, if you're not
too big. Speak quietly, or you'll waken the Major." Giggles and
smothered laughter; a flashlight winked for a moment and showed a
line of five trucks, the front and rear ones covered with
tarpaulin tents. The voices came from the shelter next the gun.
The men inside drew up their legs and made room for the
strangers; said they were sorry they hadn't anything dry to offer
them except a little rum. The intruders accepted this gratefully.

The Britishers were a giggly lot, and Claude thought, from their
voices, they must all be very young. They joked about their Major
as if he were their schoolmaster. There wasn't room enough on the
truck for anybody to lie down, so they sat with their knees under
their chins and exchanged gossip. The gun team belonged to an
independent battery that was sent about over the country,
"wherever needed." The rest of the battery had got through, gone
on to the east, but this big gun was always getting into trouble;
now something had gone wrong with her tractor and they couldn't
pull her out. They called her "Jenny," and said she was taken
with faint