three disembowelled horses and an overturned Boche ammunition waggon.
The shells were still on the shelves. They were Yellow Cross, the
deadliest of the Boche mustard-gas shell.

I went on leave next morning, and got a motor-car lift from Peronne as
far as Amiens. Before reaching Villers-Bretonneux, of glorious, fearful
memories, we passed through Warfusee-Abancourt, a shell of its former
self, a brick heap, a monument of devastation. An aged man and a slim
white-faced girl were standing by the farm cart that had brought them
there, the first civilians I had seen since August. The place was
deserted save for them. In sad bereavement they looked at the cruel
desolation around them.

"My God," said my companion, interpreting my inmost thought, "what a
home-coming!"

XVIII. A LAST DAY AT THE O.P.

When, on October 21, I returned to France, the war had made a very big
stride towards its end. Cambrai had been regained, and Le Cateau--"Lee
Katoo," the men insisted on calling it--taken. Ostend was ours, Lille
was ours; over Palestine we had cast our mantle. Our own Division,
still hard at it, had gone forward twenty-four miles during my
fortnight's leave in England. Stories of their doings trickled towards
me when I broke the journey at Amiens on my way back to the lines. I
met an Infantry captain bound for England.

"It's been all open fighting this last fortnight--cavalry, and forced
marches, and all that--and I don't want to hear any more talk of the
new Armies not being able to carry out a war of movement," he said
chirpily. "The men have been magnificent. The old Boche is done now;
but we're making no mistakes--we're after him all the while.

"Dam funny, you know, some of the things that are happening up there.
The Boche has left a lot of coal dumps behind, and every one's after
it. There's a 2000-ton pile at Le Cateau, and it was disappearing so
rapidly that they put a guard on it. I was walking with my colonel the
other day, and we came across an Australian shovelling coal from this
dump into a G.S. waggon. A sentry, with fixed bayonet, was marching up
an' down.

"The colonel stopped when we came to the sentry, and asked him what he
was supposed to be doing.

"'Guarding the coal dump, sir.'

"'But what is this Australian doing? Has he any authority to draw coal?
Did he show you a chit?'

"'No, sir,' replied the sentry. 'I thought, as he had a Government
waggon, it would be all right.'

"'Upon my