the spot; and as it
was near lunch-time some one else suggested that the court adjourn
while an officer motor-cycled over and made inquiries. And I'm hanged,"
concluded the teller of the story, "if the officer didn't come back and
report that the waggons were still there, had been there all the time,
and were in good condition and under a guard. Piles of official
correspondence had been written over the matter, and the investigation
had drifted through all sorts of channels."

Midnight: I had sent out the night-firing orders to our four batteries,
checked watches over the telephone, and put in a twenty minutes'
wrestle with the brain-racking Army Form B. 213. The doctor and
signalling officer had slipped away to bed, and the colonel was writing
his nightly letter home. I smoked a final cigarette and turned in at
12.30 A.M.

3.30 A.M.: The telephone bell above my head was tinkling. It was the
brigade-major's voice that spoke. "Will you put your batteries on some
extra bursts of fire between 3.45 and 4.10--at places where the enemy,
if they are going to attack, are likely to be forming up? Right!--that
gives you a quarter of an hour to arrange with the batteries.
Good-night!"

My marked map with registered targets for the various batteries was by
the bedside, and I was able, without getting up, to carry out the
brigade-major's instructions. One battery was slow in answering, and as
time began to press I complained with some force, when the
captain--his battery commander was away on a course--at last got on the
telephone. Poor Dawson. He was very apologetic. I never spoke to him
again. He was a dead man within nine hours.

I suppose I had been asleep again about twenty minutes when a rolling
boom, the scream of approaching shells, and regular cracking bursts to
right and left woke me up. Now and again one heard the swish and the
"plop" of gas-shells. A hostile bombardment, without a doubt. I looked
at my watch--4.33 A.M.

It was hours afterwards before I realised that this was the opening
bombardment of perhaps the mightiest, most overpowering assault in
military history. Had not the "PREPARE FOR ATTACK" warning come in I
should have been in pyjamas, and might possibly have lain in bed for
two or three minutes, listening quietly and comfortably while
estimating the extent and intensity of the barrage. But this occasion
was different, and I was up and about a couple of minutes after waking.
Opening my door, I encoun