identified on the map. All calculations to be made by two
officers working separately, who will then check each other.

"Every precaution must be taken not to attract the attention of
the enemy to batteries moving forward into action. Nothing to be
taken up in daylight, except in the event of _very_ bad
visibility."

The colonel rode over to see the C.R.A. of the Division to whom our
Brigade had been loaned. After lunch he held a battery commanders'
conference in his tent, and explained the morrow's barrage scheme.
"Ernest," the dog, spent a delighted frolicsome hour chasing a Rugby
football that some Australians near our waggon lines brought out for
practice. Hubbard went on to the new positions to lay out his telephone
lines. I occupied myself completing returns for the staff captain.

By five o'clock I had joined the colonel and Hubbard at the new
positions. Our only possible mess was a roofless gun-pit not far from a
road. The colonel and Hubbard were covering it with scrap-heap sheets
of rusty iron, and a tarpaulin that was not sufficiently expansive.
Further down the road was a dug-out into which two could squeeze. The
colonel said Hubbard and I had better occupy it. He preferred to sleep
in the gun-pit, and already had gathered up a few armfuls of grasses
and heather to lie upon. Manning and the cook had discovered a hole of
their own, and the two clerks and the orderlies had cramped themselves
into a tiny bivouac.

The final fastening-down of the gun-pit roof was enlivened by heavy
enemy shelling of a battery four hundred yards north-east of us.
Several splinters whistled past, and one flying piece of iron, four
inches long and an inch wide, missed my head by about a foot and buried
itself in the earthen floor of the mess. "That's the narrowest escape
you've had for some time," smiled the colonel.

Ten minutes later the brigade clerk brought me the evening's batch of
Divisional messages and routine orders. This was the first one I
glanced at:--

"Wire by return name of war-tired captain or subaltern, if any,
available for temporary duty for administration and training of
R.A. malaria convalescents. Very urgent."

XVII. WITH THE AMERICANS

Sept. 27: Our meetings with the Americans had so far been pretty
casual. We had seen parties of them in June and July, training in the
Contay area, north of the Albert-Amiens road; and one day during that
period I accompanied