ng bowls.

In this the two howitzer batteries, especially Wilson's 61st, were
splendid, and spotted and knocked out gun after gun of the enemy. He
had an observing station halfway up the hill above Ste Marguerite, to
which I went occasionally, with a grand view up to Vregny and Chivres;
but even here, although the O.P. was beautifully concealed, one had
to be careful not to show a finger or a cap, for the German snipers in
the wood below were excellent shots, and there were some narrow
escapes.

The worst of it was that we could take very little exercise. I used to
go out nearly every morning before sunrise to visit the posts, but was
often surprised by the sun before I'd finished my rounds, and had to
bolt back under fire; and after sunset I'd go round to Missy, &c., and
visit the troops there. Otherwise, we could not go out at all in the
daytime--it was much too "unhealthy,"--and what with numerous meals
and little movement we grew disgustingly fat. I put in a lot of time
drawing careful maps of the position.

The farm itself was cleaned up from roof to cellar by Moulton-Barrett
and his myrmidons, but it was not perfect at first. My bed was a mass
of stale blood-stains from the wounded who had lain there before we
came, and St Andre, whose bed was not of the cleanest and exuded an
odd and unpleasing smell, routed about below it, and extracted the
corpse of a hen, which must have been there for ten days at least.

We cleaned up the farmyard too--it was perfectly foul when we
came--but we could not show much even there, although the gate was
always kept closed, for any sign of life was generally greeted with a
bullet. A man got one through the knee when just outside it, and the
gate itself had several holes through it. The Bedfords used to send a
company at a time there for hot tea in the mornings and evenings, for
they could not light fires where they were, and shivered accordingly.

Many were the schemes for improving their wood--trenches; and at last
Orlebar (killed later near Wulverghem), who had been a civil engineer,
drew up an arrangement for flooding the wood and retiring to a more
satisfactory line. But before it could be put into practice we got
orders to retire, and for the 12th Brigade on our left to relieve us.

This meant, of course, thinning the line terribly, and we were, with
the 12th Brigade, somewhat nervous about it, for we did not know what
it portended. But we got away during the night in per