with the Germans, _every
day_. Secrecy was increased. Guards were doubled to see that no one
slipped through the lines. Signals were watched. The whole affair was
baffling, and yet we could find no clue.

Just in front of the wood where the battery was concealed, stood an
old farmhouse where a genial Frenchwoman lived and dispensed good
cheer to us. She had none of the men of her own family nor any
farmhands to help her, but kept up the farmwork all alone. Every day,
usually in the middle of the morning, she went out to the fields
behind her house and ploughed, with an old white horse drawing the
plough. For some reason she never ploughed more than one or two
furrows at a time, and when this was done, she drove the white horse
back to the barn. One day, an officer noticed that a German plane
hovered over the field while the woman was ploughing, and that when
she went back to the house, the plane shot away. The next day the same
thing happened. Later in the day, the battery received its daily
reminder from the Boche gunners, as unerringly accurate as ever.

Here was a clue. The solution of the problem followed. The woman knew
the position of the battery, and every day when she went out to
plough, she drove the white horse up and down, making a furrow
directly in front of the battery. When the men in the German plane saw
the white horse, they flew overhead, took a photograph of the newly
turned furrow, and turned the photograph over to their gunners. The
rest was easy.

[Illustration: A TANK GOING OVER A TRENCH ON ITS WAY INTO
ACTION]

The next day we missed three events which had become part of our daily
life. The German plane no longer hovered in the air. Our battery, for
the first time in weeks, spent a peaceful day. And in the field behind
her house, a woman with an old white horse no longer made the earth
ready for the sowing.

* * * * *

For three days now we had received no rations, and were obliged to
subsist on the food which the Boche had left behind him when he fled.
Finally, when all our plans were complete, we were notified that the
point of attack had been shifted to N----, a village about four miles
away. This practical joke we thought in extremely bad taste, but there
was nothing for it but to pack up and move as quickly as possible. We
learned that our troops at N---- had tried twice to break through the
German lines by bombing. A third attempt was to be made