e thrust into the hedge that skirted the neat garden at
the back.

Major Bullivant gave me welcome, and read extracts from Sir Douglas
Haig's report on the Fifth Army Retreat--his 'Times' had just reached
him. He asked the doctor whether it was too early for a
whisky-and-soda, and showed us a Boche barometer, his latest war
trophy. "We've lost quite a lot of men since you've been away," he told
me. "Do you realise the Brigade has been only four days out of the
line since August 1st? You've heard about young Beale being wounded, of
course? I was on leave, and so was Beadle; and Tincler was sick, so
there was only Dumble and Beale running the battery. Beale got hit when
shifting the waggon line, ... and it was rather fine of him. He knew
old Dumble was up to his eyes that day, and told the sergeant-major not
to tell Dumble what had happened to him, until the battle was over. Did
you hear, too, about Manison, one of the new officers? Poor chap!
Killed by a bomb dropped in daylight by one of our own aeroplanes as he
was going to the O.P.

"The Boche hasn't done much night-bombing lately. I don't think he's
got the 'planes. He gave us one terrible night, though, soon after we
crossed the canal, ... knocked out two of my guns and killed any number
of horses. There were ammunition dumps going up all over the place that
night; ... he stopped us from doing our night firing.

"Have you heard the story of the old woman at S----?" he went on. "When
the bombardment was going on the civilians went down into the cellars.
The Germans hooked it, and the people came up from the cellars. But
Boche snipers were still in the village, and our advance parties warned
the inhabitants to keep below.... When, however, our troops came along
in a body, one old woman rushed forward from under the church wall, in
the square, you know.... She was excited, I expect.... A swine of a
Boche in a house on the far side of the square shot her.... Our
infantry surrounded that house."

"Well, I must quit," ejaculated the doctor suddenly. We went out and
made for the village road again. A screaming swish, and a report that
hurt the ears and shattered the windows in the front of the cottage. A
Boche high-velocity shell had crashed a few yards away on the other
side of the stream, and thrown up spouts of black slimy mud. The doctor
and I scurried back to the shelter of the cottage wall. Another shell
and another. A lieutenant-colonel of Infantry, on horseback