diately to a Field Artillery Brigade
of another Division. Orders are apt to arrive in this sudden peremptory
fashion. Within an hour and a half the major had bidden good-bye to us
and ridden off, a mess cart following with his kit. And Major Veasey
came to reign in his stead.

Major Mallaby-Kelby left one souvenir, a bottle of the now famous white
wine which had got mislaid--at least the cook explained it that way.
The omission provided Brigade Headquarters with the wherewithal to
drink the major's health.

At nine o'clock that night I stood with Major Veasey outside our
headquarters dug-out. A mizzling rain descended. Five substantial fires
were burning beyond the heights where the Boche lay. "What's the odds
on the war ending by Christmas?" mused the major. "... I give it until
next autumn," he added.

A battery of 60-pounders had come up close by. Their horses, blowing
hard, had halted in front of our dug-out half an hour before, and the
drivers were waiting orders to pull the guns the final three hundred
yards into position. Two specks of lights showed that a couple of them
were smoking cigarettes. "Look at those drivers," I said. "They've been
here all this time and haven't dismounted yet."

The major stepped forward and spoke to one of the men. "Get off, lad,
and give the old horse a rest. He needs it."

"Some of these fellows will never learn horse management though the war
lasts ten years," he said resignedly as he went downstairs.

I remember our third and last night in that dug-out, because the air
below had got so vitiated that candles would only burn with the
feeblest of glimmers.

XIII. NURLU AND LIERAMONT

Sept. 6: The expected orders for the Brigade's farther advance arrived
at 2 P.M., and by eight o'clock Wilde and myself had selected a new
headquarters in a trench south of the wood. A tarpaulin and pit-prop
mess had been devised: I had finished the Brigade's official War Diary
for August; dinner was on the way; and we awaited the return of Major
Veasey from a conference with the Infantry brigadier.

The major came out of the darkness saying, "We'll have dinner at once
and then move immediately. There's a show to-morrow, and we must be
over the canal before daybreak.... Heard the splendid news?... We've
got right across the Drocourt Queant line.... That's one reason why we
are pushing here to-morrow."

We had a four-miles' march before us, and Manning and Meddings, our
mess waiter an