re, otherwise they will be firing on our own
people. Tell our liaison officer with the --th Infantry Brigade that we
are no longer firing on the village.... And increase the how. battery's
range by 1000 yards."

Five minutes later the brigade-major let us know that the Corps on our
left had cleared a vastly important ridge, but their most northerly
Division was held up by machine-gun fire. When the situation was eased
they would advance upon the canal. Our D Battery was now firing at
maximum range, and at 11.20 the colonel ordered them to move up
alongside C.

The exhilarating swiftness of the success infected every one. Drysdale
rang up to know whether we hadn't any fresh targets for D Battery. "I'm
sure we've cleared out every Boche in the quarry you gave us," he said.
The staff captain told us he was bringing forward his ammunition dumps.
The old wheeler was observed to smile. Even the telephone seemed to be
working better than for months past. In restraint of over-eagerness,
complaints of short shooting filtered in from the infantry, but I
established the fact that our batteries were not the sinners.

By tea-time all the batteries had advanced, and the colonel, "Ernest,"
and myself were walking at the head of the headquarters waggon and mess
carts through a village that a fortnight before had been a hotbed of
Germany's hardest fighting infantry.

The longer the time spent in the fighting area, the stronger that
secret spasm of apprehension when a shift forward to new positions had
to be made. The ordinary honest-souled member of His Majesty's forces
will admit that to be a true saying. The average healthy-minded recruit
coming to the Western Front since July 1916 marvelled for his first
six months on the thousands of hostile shells that he saw hitting
nothing in particular, and maiming and killing nobody. If he survived a
couple of years he lost all curiosity about shells that did no harm; he
had learned that in the forward areas there was never real safety, the
fatal shell might come at the most unexpected moment, in the most
unlooked-for spot: it might be one solitary missile of death, it might
accompany a hideous drove that beat down the earth all around, and
drenched a whole area with sickening scorching fumes; he might not show
it, but he had learned to fear.

But on this move-up we were agog with the day's fine news. We were in
the mood to calculate on the extent of the enemy's retirement: for the
moment