r anti-aircraft
guns and brought cruel death to horses camped alongside the canal. On
the second night we had witnessed a glorious revenge. Our search-lights
had concentrated upon a Gotha, and they refused to let it escape their
glare. Then suddenly from up above came the putt-puttr-putt of
machine-guns. Red and blue lights floated down; the swift streakings of
inflammatory bullets clove the cobalt sky; with ecstasy we realised
that one of our airmen was in close combat with the invader. When the
enemy 'plane crashed to earth, a blazing holocaust, cheers burst from
hundreds of tent-dwellers who had come out to view the spectacle.

And now on the 16th of September we had pitched tents a mile south of
Lieramont, which we had left on the 9th, on the confines of a wood that
stretched down to a road and fringed it for three parts of a mile to
the village of Templeux la Fosse. Wilde and the adjutant had departed
in high spirits, and their best clothes, to catch the leave train, and
I was doing adjutant. Hubbard, a new officer from D Battery, who before
getting his commission had been a signalling sergeant, filled Wilde's
shoes. I had ridden into Templeux la Fosse to conduct a polite argument
with the officer of a Division newly arrived from Palestine on the
matter of watering arrangements. His point was that his Division had
reached the area first and got the pumps into working order, and his
instructions were to reserve the troughs for the horses of his own
Division. I argued that if our horses did not water in Templeux they
would have to do a seven-mile journey three times a day to the next
nearest _abreuvoir_. "And you can't claim the exclusive use of a
watering-point unless Corps grants special permission," I concluded.

"But Corps haven't instructed you to water here," he persisted.

"Neither have they told us _not_ to come here," I countered.

We parted, agreeing to refer the whole matter to Corps. Corps, I might
add, ruled that we should be allowed to water 200 horses per hour at
certain hours, and that the other Division should police the
performance.

I had returned in time to administer the distribution of fifty-nine
remounts come from the base to replace battery horses killed by bombs
and shell-fire, or evacuated by "Swiffy," our veterinary officer, to
the Mobile Veterinary Section, as a result of the hard-going and
watering difficulties since the advance started on August 8th.

I was talking to the staff cap