of the line of fire.

'"If a German battery starts trying to out that feller," he sez to me,
"we just about stand a healthy chance of meetin' an odd shell or two
that's tryin' for the range."

'We had to pass through a bit of a town called Palloo,[2] an' just before
we comes to it we met some teams from one of the Column's other sections
comin' back. Their officer was in front an' as we passed he called to
the Left'nant that Palloo had been shelled that mornin' an' the
Headquarter Staff near blotted out.

'I could just see the Left'nant chewin' this over as we went on, an'
presently he asks me if it's anyways a frequent thing for us to come
under fire takin' ammunition up. I told 'im about a few o' the times I'd
seen it happen myself, an' also about how we had the airmen an' the
German guns makin' a dead set at the Column durin' the Retreat an'
shellin' us out o' one place after the other.

'Before I finished it we hears the whoop o' a big shell an' a crash in
the town, an' the drivers begins to look round at each other. Bang-bang
another couple o' shells drops in poor old Palloo, an' the drivers begins
to look at the Left'nant an' to finger their reins. He kep' on, an' of
course I follows 'im an' the teams follows us.

'"I see there's a church tower in the town, Bombardier," he sez. "Does
our road run near it?"

'I told him we 'ad to go through the square where the church stood.

'"Then we come pretty near walkin' through the bull's-eye o' their
target," he sez; "for I'll bet they're reckonin' on an observation post
bein' in the tower, an' they're tyin' to out it."

'We got into Palloo an' it was like goin' through it at midnight, only
wi' daylight instead of lamp-light. There wasn't an inhabitant to be
seen, except one man peepin' up from a cellar gratin', an' one woman
runnin' after a toddlin' kid that 'ad strayed out. She was shriekin'
quick-fire French at it an' when she grabbed it up an' started back the
kid opened 'is lungs an' near yelled the roof off. The woman ran into a
house an' the door slammed an' shut off the shriekin' like liftin' the
needle off a gramaphone disc. An' it left the main street most awful
empty an' still wi' the jingle o' the teams' harness an' clatter o' the
wagon wheels the only sounds. Another few shells came in an' one hit a
house down the street in front of us. We saw the slates an' the chimney
pots fair jump in the air an' the 'ole 'ouse sort of collapsed in a heap