over us; the whole countryside spurted flashes. One of
the horses plunged with nervousness. "It's an S.O.S. call, sir," said a
driver who had put his horse under a bank, raising his voice against
the din. "Ernest," his little body quivering with excitement, was
already racing backwards and forwards. I told my groom to take my horse
into the sunken road, and started to look for the colonel and the
headquarters party. A sticky walk up the track to the left took me
within a couple of hundred yards of the village of Ronssoy, where most
of the Boche shells were falling. No signs of Headquarters up there.
After a lot of shouting to persuade the dog to keep near me, I turned
back and went through the mud again, past the cross-roads junction, and
along a still slimier, water-logged cart-track. I found every one on
Headquarters digging shelters in the side of the road. The servants had
rigged up a corrugated-iron habitation for the colonel. The brigade
clerks, the signallers, and the cooks had dug hard, and made use of
trench-covers, with the swift resource that long experience of
trench-life had developed into a kind of second nature. Hubbard had
arranged an "elephant," raised on two rows of ancient sandbags, for
himself and me to snuggle under.

"I've sent out S.O.S. lines to the batteries," said the colonel, who
was sitting on a box in a long-disused gun-pit. "We'll turn this place
into a mess to-morrow."

The firing died down. I sent some one to tell the groom to take the
horses back to the waggon line which was being established at the
headquarters position we had just left. The cook prepared us a simple
meal. By 10 P.M. the brigade-major had telephoned instructions for the
night-firing with which the batteries were to busy themselves. Our
night was disturbed by the swish-plop of gas shells, but none came near
enough seriously to disquiet us.

XV. "ERNEST" IS LOST

Sept. 19: That morning Bob Pottinger reported at Brigade Headquarters,
smiling all over his face. An extra leave warrant had come in, and it
was his turn to go. For weeks past every one had known of his eagerness
to get home, in order to conduct certain matrimonial projects to the
"Yes or No" stage. Leave to England was going nicely now. Dumble, young
Beale, Judd, and Hetherington were away, and the men were going at the
rate of five per day. Officers had to be five months in France since
their last leave--mostly it ran to seven; the men's qualificat