ity.

"But listen; can you hear all that traffic? It's our infantry coming
back."

"Can you hear machine-gun fire?" I asked resentfully.

"No."

"Well, I'm damned if I disturb the colonel until you can tell me that,
at least," I said finally, turning on my right side.

XII. OUT OF THE WAY

The usual monotonous spectacle when we woke next morning: the narrow
streets of what a few days before had been a tranquil, out-of-the-war
village choked with worn-out troops marching to go into rest. Now that
we had become a brigade of artillery without guns, a British
non-fighting unit struggling to get out of the way of a manoeuvring
French army, our one great hope was that Corps would send us right back
to a depot where we could refit ourselves with fresh guns and
reinforcements, to some spot where we need not be wondering every five
minutes whether the enemy was at our heels. Men who have fought four
days and nights on end feel like that when the strain of actual battle
ceases.

The Boche guns sounded nearer, and the colonel had ordered a mounted
officer to go back and seek definite information upon the situation. By
10 A.M. a retiring French battalion marched through, and reported that
the line was again being withdrawn. By 11 A.M. two batteries of "75's"
came back. Which decided the colonel that the tactical situation
demanded our departure, and the Brigade began the march to Elincourt.
On past more evacuated villages. Abandoned farm carts--some of which
our batteries eagerly adopted for transporting stores and kit--and the
carcases of dogs, shot or poisoned, lying by the roadside, told their
own story of the rush from the Hun. By 1 P.M. we reached Elincourt, a
medieval town whose gable-ends and belfry towers, and straight rows of
hoary lime-trees, breathed the grace and charm of the real France. I
made immediately for the Mairie, bent upon securing billets for
officers and men; but standing at the gateway was a Corps
despatch-rider who handed over instructions for the Brigade to continue
the march to Estree St Denis, a town twenty kilometres distant.

5 P.M.: Estree St Denis, to which I rode in advance with a billeting
officer from each battery, proved to be a drab smoky town of
mean-looking, jerry-built houses. One thought instinctively of the
grimiest parts of Lancashire and the Five Towns. The wide and
interminably long main street was filled with dust-laden big guns and
heavy hows., four rows of them. Ev