the whole Divisional Artillery there....

"I'll bet we shan't be ready for the batteries when they come in," he
went on gloomily--and then added, like the good soldier that he is,
"My groom will show you where the horses can water."

A long-range shell, passing high overhead and exploding among the
houses some way behind us, showed that Amiens was no health resort. But
horse lines were allotted, and in due course the long corridors of the
evacuated building resounded with the clatter-clatter of gunners and
drivers marched in to deposit their kits. "You've got a big piece of
chalk this morning, haven't you?" grumbled the adjutant to the adjutant
of our companion Brigade, complaining that they were portioning off
more rooms than they were entitled to. Still he was pleased to find
that the room he and I shared contained a wardrobe, and that inside the
door was pinned a grotesque, jolly-looking placard of Harry
Tate--moustache and all--in "Box o' Tricks." The discovery that a
currant cake, about as large as London, sent a few days before from
England, had disappeared from our Headquarters' mess-cart during the
day's march, led to a tirade on the shortcomings of New Army servants.
But he became sympathetic when I explained that the caretakers, two
sad-eyed French women, the only civilians we ourselves met that day,
were anxious that our men should be warned against prising open locked
doors and cupboards. "Tell 'em any man doing that will be shot at
dawn," he said, leaving me to reassure the women.

Twenty-four hours later, after another march, our guns were in
position. With pick and shovel, and a fresh supply of corrugated iron,
the batteries were fortifying their habitations; Brigade Headquarters
occupied the only dwelling for miles round, a tiny cafe that no shell
had touched. The colonel had a ground-floor room and a bedstead to
himself; the adjutant and myself put down our camp-beds in an attic,
with the signalling officer and the American doctor next door, and H.Q.
signallers and servants in the adjoining loft that completed the upper
storey. It was a rain-proof comfortable shelter, but the C.R.A. didn't
altogether approve of it. "You're at a cross-roads, with an ammunition
dump alongside of you, and the road outside the front door is mined
ready for blowing up should the Boche advance this way," he said
grimly, when he visited us. "In any case, he'll shoot by the map on
this spot immediately he starts a battle....