ld Artillery Brigade?"

"No! This is the --nd Field Company," replied a fair-moustached sapper
captain, who was lying on a mattress in the room from which the light
came, reading a book of O. Henry stories.

"Sorry to trouble you," I said, "but I'm trying to find the --rd
Brigade. Do you know if they are round here?"

"I don't, I'm afraid. We only came in this afternoon."

"It's a house with a red roof," I went on, rather hopelessly.

"I think I know the place," chimed in a voice from an inner room. "It's
a shooting-box, isn't it? Your best way is to get on the road again
and take the next track on the left. I noticed a red-roofed house up
there when we came by."

I trudged back and got on to the new track, feeling very martyred but
very resigned. I suppose I ought to have kept my eyes open more, I
thought. Next time I go to a new part of the country I won't miss a
single distinguishing feature.

It was now 1.15 A.M. I came to a lonely house fronted by a neatly
railed garden. I hammered noisily on the door and found that it opened
into a darkened passage. A torch flashed into my face. "Is this the
--rd Brigade?" I began.

"Yes," a voice shouted, and suddenly a door opened and a spurt of light
revealed a youthful pink-cheeked staff lieutenant. "Are you from the
--nd Brigade?" he asked. "Oh, bon! bon!--I've been waiting for you."

"Waiting for me!" I retorted, nettled by his airy manner. "Hard luck on
me having to traipse at this time of night to a place I don't know to
get orders you ought to have sent out."

"Yes, I know," he replied cheerfully. "We're awfully sorry, but it's
the French Division, you know. We've only just got the orders out of
them. It's really their show.... And I'm afraid the first part of your
orders have been sent off to the wrong place." Saying which, he led me
into a large sombre room in which four or five officers sat immersed in
papers and message forms. An elderly colonel looked up and nodded over
his glasses. The young staff officer handed me some barrage maps and a
quantity of type-written operation orders.

"Zero hour is 5.10 A.M.," he began, "and here is the part of your
orders that has gone astray. I can't give you this copy. Will you take
the orders down from this?"

I commenced writing out the operation order, and was struck to find
that the barrage "lifts" were in hundreds of metres instead of hundreds
of yards. "Yes, the French insisted on that," explained the staff
lieu