d! At last!" I murmured vehemently, conjuring up visions of
the good old homeland.

The orderly painted the iodine round both wounds and put on a larger
bandage. At this moment R----, an officer of "D" company, came limping
into Cross Street.

"Hallo, L----," he exclaimed, "we had better try and get down to
hospital together."

We started in a cavalcade to walk down the remaining trenches into the
village, not before my servant, who had insisted on staying with me,
had remarked--

"I think I should like to go up again now, sir," and to which proposal
I had answered very emphatically--

"You won't do anything of the sort, my friend!"

R---- led the way, with a man to help him, next came my servant, then
two orderlies carrying a stretcher with a terribly wounded Scottish
private on it; another orderly and myself brought up the rear--and a
very slow one at that!

Turning a corner, we found ourselves amidst troops of the battalion in
reserve to us, all of them eager for news. A subaltern, with whom I
had been at a Divisional School, asked how far we had got. I told him
that we were probably in their second line by now. This statement
caused disappointment. Every one appeared to believe that we had taken
the three lines in about ten minutes. I must confess that the night
before the attack I had entertained hopes that it would not take us
much longer than this. As a matter of fact my battalion, or the
remains of it, after three hours of splendid and severe fighting,
managed to penetrate into the third line trench.

Loss of blood was beginning to tell, and my progress was getting
slower every minute. Each man, as I passed, put his arm forward to
help me along and said a cheery word of some kind or other. Down the
wide, brick-floored trench we went, past shattered trees and battered
cottages, through the rank grass and luxuriant wild flowers, through
the rich, unwarlike aroma of the orchard, till we emerged into the
village "boulevard."

The orderly held me under the arms till I was put on a wheeled
stretcher and hurried along, past the "boulevard pool" with its
surrounding elms and willows, and, at the end of the "boulevard," up a
street to the left. A short way up this street on the right stood the
Advanced Dressing Station--a well-sandbagged house reached through the
usual archway and courtyard. A dug-out, supplied with electric light
and with an entrance of remarkable sandbag construction, had been
tunnelled ou