king
of.

We had to wait an hour for orders, the Brigadier knowing nothing of
the General's intentions. By six it was quite dark, and the firing had
ceased: and we got orders to retrace our steps to a certain camping
place (marked _I_ on sketch). This meant an extra mile, and immense
trouble and confusion in finding our way over ditches and then sorting
kits in the dark: but finally we did it, ate a meal, and turned in
about 9.30 p.m. pretty well tired out, as we had been on the move
fourteen hours and had marched about twenty-one miles. To put the lid
on it, a sharp shower of exceedingly frigid rain surprised us all in
our beauty sleep, about 11 p.m. and soaked the men's blankets and
clothes. Luckily I had everything covered up, and I spread my overcoat
over my head and slept on, breathing through the pocket-holes.

(I will continue this in diary form and post it if and when I get a
chance.)

_Friday 7th._ Started at 8.30 and marched quietly about five miles.
This brought us within view of the large village of D., which is
roughly half-way between B. and C. Between us and it the battle was in
full swing. We halted by a pontoon bridge (2 on sketch), just out of
range of the enemy's guns, and watched it for several hours. Owing to
the utter flatness of the ground, we could see very little of the
infantry. It was hot and the mirage blurred everything. Our artillery
was clearly very superior to theirs, both in quantity (quite five to
one it seemed) and in the possession of high explosive shell, of which
the enemy had none: but we were cruelly handicapped (_a_) by the fact
that their men and guns were entrenched and ours exposed; and (_b_) by
the mirage, which made the location of their trenches and emplacements
almost impossible.

I had better not say much about the battle yet, but I will give a
rough sketch and describe our own experiences. I will only say this,
that the two great difficulties our side had to contend with were: (1)
the inability of the artillery to locate anything with certainly in
the mists and mirage, and (2) the difficulty of finding and getting
round the enemy's flanks. Either they had a far larger force than we
expected, or they were very skilfully spread out--for they covered an
amazingly wide front, quite eight miles, I should say, or more.

The battle was interesting to watch, but not exciting. The noise of
the shells from field guns is exactly like that of a rocket going up.
When the shell