the
village that no English troops had visited before, and the inhabitants
that feared us, and afterwards did not want us to leave; of the
friendly bearded patron of an estaminet, who flourished an 'Echo de
Paris,' and pointed to the words _tenacite anglaise_ in an account of
the fighting; of the return of the signalling officer, who, while
attending a course at an Army School, had been roped in to lead one of
Sandeman Carey's infantry platoons; of the magnificently equipped
casualty clearing station that a week before the offensive had been
twenty-five miles behind the lines, and only got its last patients
away two hours before the Boches arrived!

* * * * *

April 2nd: A few more new guns had come in from the Refitting Depot. We
were almost complete to establishment. The horses were out grazing and
getting fat again. Most of the men were hard at it, playing their
eternal football. The colonel came out of the chateau, which was
Brigade Headquarters billet, and settled himself in a deck-chair. He
looked sun-tanned and fit.

"If all colonels were as competent and knowledgeable as our colonel, we
should have won the war by now," said Dumble as he and I walked away.
"What a beautiful day."

"Yes. Oh to be in England, now that April's here," I chimed in.

"Oh to be in England, any bally old time of the year," Dumble corrected
me.

THE RETURN PUSH

I. THE DEFENCE OF AMIENS

On a day towards the end of April the colonel and I, riding well ahead
of the Brigade, passed through deserted Amiens and stopped when we came
upon some fifty horses, nose-bags on, halted under the trees along a
boulevard in the eastern outskirts of the city. Officers in groups
stood beneath, or leaned against, the high wall of a large civil
hospital that flanked the roadway.

Reinforced in guns and personnel, and rested after the excitements and
hazards of the March thrust-back, our two brigades of Divisional Field
Artillery, and the D.A.C., were bound again for the Front. These
waiting officers formed the advance billeting parties.

"We've been obeying Sir Douglas Haig's Order of the Day--getting our
backs to the wall," growled the adjutant to me, after he had sprung up
and saluted the colonel. "The staff captain met us two hours ago at
----; but they were shelling the place, and he said it wouldn't be safe
for waggon lines; so we came on here. He's inside the building now
seeing if he can put