on in a few
days," he said. "You may have guessed that. What can you do to help us?
You know the pressure under which the R.A.M.C. will be working. It'll be
a big job dressing all the casualties there are likely to be; but we'll
manage that bit. What we want is a hand in the feeding of them. You
understand?" The face of the secretary glowed with excitement. "I'll do
any mortal thing I can," he answered eagerly. "There'll be nothing doing
here once the show starts, so I'll shut down, and bring my whole stock
over to your dressing station, and my staff too. We can feed several
hundred if you'll let us." "What about the cost of the grub?" "Not a
word about cost, sir! You're welcome to it free, gratis, and for
nothing, with all the pleasure in the world." "Thanks awfully," said the
D.A.D.M.S. "That's just what I wanted you to offer, and I thought you
would; your folks have helped us so often before." "Jolly good job,"
mused the Y.M.C.A. man, "that I have kept hidden those extra cases of
chocolates and sweet biscuits. I thought there might be something of
this sort coming off."

'Ere the grey dawn of a certain morning brought the nerve-racking
inferno of barrage and counter-barrage, the entire stock of the canteen
was installed in the larger of the two huts which formed the collecting
post. Boxes of biscuits, chocolates, and cigarettes with the lids
knocked off, stood ranged along the wall, ready for the tired and hungry
guests who would soon appear. Outside, in two huge cauldrons, gallons of
strong cocoa were brewing merrily. Little was spoken by the men standing
around, as they waited, nerves a trifle on edge, for the breaking of the
storm. Suddenly from somewhere in the rear came the hollow boom of a
"heavy," the artillery signal, and in an instant every battery in the
area had hurled its first salvo of the barrage. The air was full of
noise, the rolling roar of the guns at "drum fire," the hissing and
screaming of flying shells, the echoes of far-away explosions. The
ground trembled as if an earthquake had come. The battle had begun.

'The O.C. looked in at the door of the hut. "Everything ready?" he
asked. "Ready and waiting," answered the Y.M.C.A. man, and very soon in
twos and threes the wounded began to dribble in, and shortly a steady
stream of battered humanity was straggling down the road, to halt at the
welcome sight of the hut with the Red Cross flag by its door. How some
of them limped over every weary step of