He jotted abstruse calculations for a moment. “Twenty tons,” said he. “Are you anywhere near the river”?
The river flowed at the bottom of the lines.
“Right. I’ll send you a barge. To-day’s Monday. Should be with you by Wednesday. Name? Unit?”
He ought to have been commanding an army, that man.
We lunched most triumphantly in Hazebrouck, had tea and dinner at Cassel and I was dropped on my own doorstep well before midnight.
It was not unpleasing to let drop, quite casually of course, to Division and Corps and Army, that twenty tons of timber were being delivered at my lines in three days and that there was more where that came from. If they wanted any, they had only to come and ask me about it.
17
During this period the Major had handed over the eighteen-pounders, receiving 4.5 howitzers in exchange, nice little cannons, but apparently in perpetual need of calibration. None of the gunners had ever handled them before but they picked up the new drill with extraordinary aptitude, taking the most unholy delight in firing gas shells. They hadn’t forgotten Armentières either.
My wagon line repose was roughly broken into by an order one afternoon to come up immediately. The Colonel was elsewhere and the Major had taken his place once more.