olonel looked grieved, but shook his head. "We'll send
back a pair of draught-horses if we can," was all he said to me. And we
did.

6 P.M.: We had reached Thiescourt, a hillside village that had thought
never to be threatened by the Germans again. Dwellings damaged during
their last visit had been repaired. New houses made of fine white
stone, quarried in the district, had been built, and were building. The
bitterness of it, if the foul devastating Boche were to come again!
There were many evidences of the hurried flight of the last two
days,--torn letters and papers, unswept fire-grates, unconsumed food
and drinks, beds with sheets in them, drawers hurriedly searched for
articles that could be taken away, disconsolate wandering dogs. A few
days before it had been arranged that the major-general, his Divisional
Staff, Ordnance, the Divisional brass band, and all the usual
appurtenances of a Divisional Headquarters, should come and make this
village a Divisional rest area. Few even of the first preparations for
visitation were left now. D.A.D.O.S., blue-tabbed and business-like,
was in the main street, bewailing the scarcity of lorries for removing
his wares to an area still farther back. He had several rifles he
would be pleased to hand out to our batteries. There was a large
quantity of clothing which would have to be left in the store he had
established. Any we didn't want would we burn, or drop in the stream
before we left? No lorry to remove the Divisional canteen. Would we
distribute the supplies free to our men? Biscuits, chocolate, potted
meats, tooth-paste, and cigarettes went like wildfire.

Brigade H.Q. mess was installed in a new house that had chalked
messages scrawled on doors, walls, and mirrors, telling searching
relations and friends the address in a distant town to which the
occupants of the house had fled. In another dwelling that Boche
aeroplanes had already bombed, we discovered sleeping quarters. At 7
P.M. a lieutenant on a motor-cycle arrived with Corps orders for the
morrow. We were to leave for Elincourt immediately the tactical
situation demanded it.

We dined early, and sought our beds early too. I had been asleep two
minutes, as I thought--really about an hour and a half--when Dumble
woke me up. "Cavalry are coming through," he said, shining his electric
torch right in my eyes, "and they say the enemy is at Lagny. Hadn't you
better let the colonel know?"

"No," I retorted with some asper