, while the case bounced along and hit a
sergeant on the backside, not even bruising it.

Just before 5 we got orders to advance in artillery formation. My
platoon led, and we followed a course shown by the dotted line. We went
through the battery and about 300 yards beyond, and then had orders to
return to camp. On this trip (which was mere window-dressing) no shell
came nearer than fifty yards: in fact our own battery made us jump much
more.

The whole episode was much more interesting than alarming. Fear is
seated in the imagination, I think, and vanishes once the mind can
assert itself. One feels very funky in the cold nights when nothing is
happening: but if one has to handle men under fire, one is braced up
and one's attention is occupied. I expect rifle fire is much more
trying: but the fact that shell-fire is more or less unaimed at one
individually, and also the warning swish, gives one a feeling of great
security.

We got back to camp near the river (4 on sketch) about 6, and dug a
perimeter, hoping to settle down for the night. But at 7.30 orders
came to move at 9.30. We were told that an enemy force had worked
round our right flank, and that our brigade had to do a night march
eastward down the river and attack it at dawn. So at 10 p.m. we
marched with just a blanket apiece, leaving our kits in the camp.
After we had gone, the Q.M. made up a big fire and got in no fewer
than fifty-two wounded, who were trying to struggle back to the field
dressing station from the firing line four or five miles away.

The fire attracted them and parties went out to help them in. I think
it is very unsatisfactory that beyond the regimental stretcher-bearers
there is no ambulance to bring the wounded back: and how can a dozen
stretchers convey 300 casualties five miles? It is a case of _sauve
qui peut_ for the wounded: and when they get to the dressing station
the congestion is very bad, thirty men in a tent, and only three or
four doctors to deal with 3,000 or 4,000 wounded. I mention this as
confirming my previous criticism of the medical service here.

Well, we started out at 10 p.m. and marched slowly and silently till
nearly midnight. Then we bivouacked for four-and-a-half-hours (5 on
sketch,) and a more uncomfortable time I hope never to spend. We had
not dared bring rugs for fear of losing them in the subsequent attack,
so I had nothing but my Burberry, a muffler and a woollen helmet. The
ground was bare earth eve