tenant briskly.

"But we haven't metres on our range-drums," I said with an air of
abandonment.

"Yes, I know, but the French insisted on it, because of their
infantry.... Oh! there's a para. there about smoke-shells--that's
important."

"The para. about smoke-shells is deleted ... there will be no
smoke-shells," put in the elderly colonel, looking up.

"Oh, is it, sir?" said the staff lieutenant, turning round.

"Yes; the correction has just come through."

"Right, sir."

I synchronised my watch, thrust the bundle of papers into my
hip-pocket, and hurried away to find my horses. It was half-past one,
and the attack was timed to start at 5.10. The colonel would require to
deal with the orders, and the battery commanders would have but the
barest time to work out their individual "lifts." I started back at the
gallop, skirting the side of the valley. I remember wishing to heaven
that the clumps and hillocks of this part of France did not look so
consistently alike. If only it were light enough for me to pick out the
mustard field that lay, a bright yellow landmark, behind our chalk
bank!

The colonel was in bed when I got back, but I held a candle while he
read through the orders, and got out his ivory ruler, and apportioned
a barrage lane to each battery. "Metres will have to become yards," was
one of his remarks.

By twenty-to-three the orderlies had set out with the battle orders to
the batteries, while I spoke on the telephone to an officer of each
battery, and synchronised watches.

When I turned in, after a whisky-and-soda and a couple of biscuits, the
colonel was fast asleep. I felt satisfied, however, that I had done my
share that night towards beating the Hun.

By 7 A.M. we were up again, and until 7 P.M. the telephone buzzed
continuously. It was a day of hard infantry fighting, of attacks that
were held up and had to be renewed, of German counter-efforts to shift
us from points won at the opening of our attack. All day long F.O.O.'s
and liaison officers telephoned reports of changes in our front line,
and five times I turned on our batteries to respond to S.O.S. calls. By
the end of the day we held three parts of the ground that our Higher
Command had planned to seize.

III. AN AUSTRALIAN "HAND-OVER"

There followed three months of varied kinds of soldiering: short spells
holding the line, odd days in rest areas, quick shifts to other parts
of the Front, occasional participation in car