; my horse stumbled
going down a bank, and for the next five minutes we walked over broken
ground. "Getting a bit too much to the right," I said to myself, and
turned my horse's head. Further thoughts were cut short by the
discovery that his forelegs were up against a belt of barbed wire.

For ten minutes I walked in front of the wire, searching for an
opening, and getting nearer to where the shells were falling. All the
time I looked earnestly for the railway line. I began to feel bitter
and resentful. "If our own Divisional Artillery had been doing
to-morrow's show I shouldn't have had to turn out on a job of this
kind," I reflected. "Damn the --th Division. Why can't they do their
work properly?"

But little gusts of anger sometimes bring with them the extra bit of
energy that carries a job through. We had reached a ruined wall now,
and there was still no opening in the wire. I could see telegraph
posts, and knew that the railway was just ahead. I got off my horse,
told the groom to wait behind the broken wall, and, climbing through
the barbed wire, picked my way along smashed sleepers and twisted rails
until I came to the crossing.

I followed the deserted shell-torn road that led from the
level-crossing, searching for a track on the left that would lead to
the house I sought. A motor-cyclist, with the blue-and-white band of
the Signal Service round his arm, came through the hedge.

"Is there a house on top of that hill?" I asked him, after a
preliminary flicker of my torch.

"Yes, sir."

"Is it a red-roofed house?"

"Well, ... I don't know, sir."

"Who's up there?"

"Smith's group, sir."

"Oh, hang! that tells me nothing. What are they--artillery?"

"Yes, sir--heavies, I think, sir."

I felt myself at a standstill. Orders for us were not likely to be with
a group of heavy artillery. "Whom are you from?" I asked finally,
preparing to move on.

"From the --th Div. Artillery, sir."

"Oh!"--with a rush of hopefulness--"you have no orders, I suppose, for
the --nd Brigade?"--mentioning our Brigade.

"No, sir."

I broke off and strode up the hillside, determined at any rate to
gather some sort of information from the house the motor-cyclist had
just left. I came upon a bare-looking, two-storied brick building with
plain doors and windows. Through the keyhole of the front door I could
see a light coming from an inside room. I opened the door and walked
down the passage, calling, "Is this the --rd Fie