uns had been heard, I
saw a bush-clad bank. Tucked up against it were horses and guns. Big
Boche shells kept falling near, and the landscape was wreathed in
smoke.

Before we got to the battery we met Major Bullivant, whose gestures
alone were eloquent enough to describe most war scenes. A rippling
sweep of his left arm indicated where two machine-gun nests on the
bosky western slopes of Saulcourt held up our infantry; a swan-like
curl of the right wrist, raised to the level of the shoulder, told
where A Battery had been situated, less than a thousand yards from the
enemy. "A company of the ---- were faltering because of the deadliness
of the machine-guns," he said. "... I got hold of a platoon commander
and he took me far enough forward to detect their whereabouts.... We
fired 200 rounds when I got back to the battery. My gunners popped them
off in find style, although the Boche retaliated.... The infantry have
gone on now.... I found two broken machine-guns and six dead Germans at
the spots we fired at.... It's been quite a good morning's work."

He smiled an adieu and went off to join a company commander he had
arranged to meet. When we reached the bank A Battery were about to move
to a sunken road farther forward. Smallman, from South Africa,
nicknamed "Buller," was in charge, and he pointed joyously to an
abandoned Boche Red Cross waggon that the battery had "commandeered."
Four mules had been harnessed to it; the battery waggon line was its
destination.

"Gee-ho! they went off in a hurry from here," remarked Major Veasey,
looking at a light engine and three trucks loaded with ammunition and
corrugated iron that the enemy had failed to get away on the
narrow-gauge line running past Saulcourt. "What we ought to do is to
have a railway ride back. The line goes to Nurlu. That would be a new
experience--and I'm tired enough."

"Yes, that would be better than the four-in-hand in the G.S. waggon
that you took to the sports meeting," I added.

A Hun 5.9 was firing persistently on a spot 400 yards between Saulcourt
and where we stood. For once in a way the dog neglected shells, and
searched for bully-beef leavings among the tins thrown aside by the
battery drivers. We were not absolutely safe. The Boche shells were
fitted with instantaneous fuses, and after each burst bits of jagged
iron flew off at right angles to points as far distant as 700 yards. As
we turned to go a piece whistled over our heads and hit one of t