s and the trench wood; and we had generally to hurry in order to
leave the chateau precincts unperceived by the beastly Taubes who
hovered overhead, always on the lookout for headquarters to shell; so
we cut down orderlies and staff to a minimum, and absolutely forbade
any hanging about outside.

[Footnote 19: To everybody's great regret, he was killed in
October 1915.]

It is no use going into or describing our proceedings day by day:
"Plus ca changeait, plus c'etait la meme chose." I have the detail of
it day by day in my diary, but it was always, in the main, the same
thing--minds and bodies at high tension throughout the day and most of
the night; perpetual artillery fire--if not by the enemy then by
ourselves; shells bursting round the chateau and hardly ever into it,
mostly shrapnel near the house and Black Marias a bit further
off--chiefly into a walled garden 200 yards off which, for some
unknown reason, the Germans were convinced held some of our guns,
though, as a matter of fact, our batteries were in our right rear, in
well-covered positions just inside (or even outside, in some cases)
the woods. But we got shells on the other side of the house as well,
over the bare half-grown lawn and flower-beds between the chateau and
the Hooge-Menin road.

It was rarely "healthy" to take a stroll in the grounds, however much
we might be in want of fresh air. Even on days which were
exceptionally quiet--and there were not many of them,--when one would
move out to look at the grounds with a view to future defences in case
we were driven back, or with a desire to ease a torpid liver, suddenly
there would be a loudening swish in the air and a crash which would
send one of the tall pine-trees into smithereens, with a shower of
broken branches in all directions, followed by another, or half a
dozen more; and we would retire gracefully--sometimes even
rapidly--behind the shelter of our house.

There were some late roses in the garden, or rather in the scattered
flower-beds near the house, which lasted out even when the snow was
on them; but about the only live beings who took any interest in them
were three or four goats, who haunted the precincts of the chateau,
and were everlastingly trying to get inside. Indeed, when
Moulton-Barrett first came to take possession, there were two goats in
the best bedrooms upstairs, who peered out of the windows at the
undesired visitors, and had to be evicted after a di