"I don't know," he replied with a tired smile. "I hope so."
A smile and a cheering word from the General, who said, "I've just seen the colonel, and I've put two of your batteries farther forward. They'll help to hold Villequier Aumont a bit longer." Then outside I met Beadle, and gave him the time and place where battery guides had to meet the B.A.C. ammunition waggons, and sent off my groom to convey this information officially to all the battery waggon lines. After which I cantered back, and discovered the colonel inspecting the two batteries that the General had moved to more forward positions.
It was 6 P.M., and the enemy advance machine-gun parties were now certainly closing in on Villequier Aumont, which lay in the hollow beneath us. But I shall always remember the handling of our composite A and C batteries on that occasion. It so exactly fulfilled drill-book requirements, it might all have been done on parade. The noses of the four 18-pdrs. peeped out from under a clump of beeches, close to a pond under the brow of a hill. Dumble had climbed to the top of a tower three-quarters of a mile from the battery, and directed the shooting from the end of a roughly laid telephone wire. He reported only fleeting glimpses of Huns, but could guess pretty well the spots at which they were congregating, and issued his orders accordingly. Young Eames, the officer passing the orders to the gunners, stood very upright, close to the battery telephonist, and let his voice ring out in crisp staccato tones that would have won him full marks at Larkhill or Shoeburyness: "Aiming point top of tower. All guns ... Four 0 degrees Right.... Concentrate Two 0 minutes on Number One.... Corrector 152.... Why didn't you shout out your Fuze Number 3?... Three Two-fifty—Two Nine-fifty.... Will you acknowledge orders, Sergeant Kyle?..."
The colonel, who was standing well behind Eames, smiled and said to me, "Good young officer that. If he keeps as cool all the time, the battery ought to shoot well."
Hun aeroplanes were beginning to come over. Trench war customs had made it almost axiomatic that firing should cease when enemy aircraft appeared. Three times the battery stopped firing at the cry, "Aeroplane up!"
The colonel intervened. "Don't stop because of aeroplanes now," he said sharply. "We're fighting moving warfare, and the enemy haven't time to concentrate all their attention on this battery."
7 P.M.: The colonel and I walked slowly back to the roadway. "I've sent back to Bushman, and told him to bring Headquarters waggon lines up here," he said. "They are too far back the other side of Ugny, and we're only a small unit: we can move more quickly than a battery. We'll unhook on the side of that hill there, away from the road. It will be quite warm to-night, and we can lie down under those trees." ... A dozen or so 5·9's rushed through the air, and burst with terrifying ear-racking crashes along the road in front of us. A charred, jagged rent showed in the wall of a farm building. Three hundred yards farther along we saw the Headquarter vehicles drawn up on the roadside. The drivers and the signallers were drinking tea, and seemed to be preparing to settle for the night in a barn whose lofty doors opened on to the road. "Look at those fellows," ejaculated the colonel testily. "They're never happy unless they can stuff themselves under a roof. Fetch 'em out, and tell 'em to pull up to the top of that hill there. As long as you keep away from villages and marked roads you can escape most of the shelling."
7.30 P.M.: We had tied up the horses, and parked the G.S. waggon and the telephone and mess carts. Twilight had almost merged into night now, but the moon was rising, and it was to be another amazingly lustrous moon. The cook had started a small log-fire to make tea for the colonel, Bushman, and myself, and after that we intended to lie down and get some sleep. "Swiffy" and the doctor seemed to have disappeared. Must be at one of the battery waggon lines, we concluded.
"While tea is getting ready, I'll walk down to D Battery again. They're pretty close up to the infantry, and I want to make sure they can get out easily if they have to make a rapid move," remarked the colonel, and he disappeared over the hill, taking his servant with him.
The kettle had not had time to boil. The colonel had only been away ten minutes. The tired drivers were unrolling their blankets and preparing for slumber. Suddenly my ear caught a voice calling up the hillside—the colonel's—followed twice by the stentorian tones of his servant.