ur men in glorious possession of
some of the hardest-won ground in the history of the Division.

"If we can hold on where we are until really fresh troops relieve us we
shall be over the Hindenburg Line in three days," said the colonel
happily, as he selected targets for the night-firing programme.

He had written "From receipt of this message S.O.S. lines will be as
follows--" when he stopped. "Can't we shorten this preliminary
verbiage?" he asked quizzically. "Castle made this opening phrase a
sort of tradition when he was adjutant."

"What about 'Henceforth S.O.S. lines will be'?" I replied, tilting my
wooden stool backwards.

"That will do!" said the colonel.

And "henceforth" it became after that.

For two more days we carried on this most tiring of all kinds of
fighting: for the infantry, hourly scraps with a watchful plucky foe;
for the gunners, perpetual readiness to fire protective bursts should
the enemy suddenly seek to shake our grip on this most fateful stretch
of front; in addition to day and night programmes of "crashes" that
allowed the gun detachments no rest, and at the same time demanded
unceasing care in "laying" and loading and firing the guns. And with
the opposing infantry so close to each other, and the front line
changing backwards and forwards from hour to hour, absolute accuracy
was never more necessary. The Brigade had had no proper rest since the
early days of August. The men had been given no opportunity for baths
or change of clothing. Our casualties had not been heavy, but they were
draining us steadily, and reinforcements stepped into this strenuous
hectic fighting with no chance of the training and testing under actual
war conditions that make a period of quiet warfare so valuable. And yet
it was this portion of "the fifty days," this exhausting, remorseless,
unyielding struggling that really led to the Boche's final downfall. It
forced him to abandon the Hindenburg Line--the beginning of the very
end.

I was going to write that it was astonishing how uncomplainingly, how
placidly each one of us went on with his ordinary routine duties during
this time. But, after all, it wasn't astonishing. The moments were too
occupied for weariness of soul; our minds rioted with the thought,
"He's getting done! Let's get on with it! Let's finish him." And if at
times one reflected on the barrenness, the wastefulness of war, there
still remained the satisfying of the instinct to do one's work