"We've been obeying Sir Douglas Haig's Order of the Day—getting our backs to the wall," growled the adjutant to me, after he had sprung up and saluted the colonel. "The staff captain met us two hours ago at ——; but they were shelling the place, and he said it wouldn't be safe for waggon lines; so we came on here. He's inside the building now seeing if he can put the whole Divisional Artillery there....
"I'll bet we shan't be ready for the batteries when they come in," he went on gloomily—and then added, like the good soldier that he is, "My groom will show you where the horses can water."
A long-range shell, passing high overhead and exploding among the houses some way behind us, showed that Amiens was no health resort. But horse lines were allotted, and in due course the long corridors of the evacuated building resounded with the clatter-clatter of gunners and drivers marched in to deposit their kits. "You've got a big piece of chalk this morning, haven't you?" grumbled the adjutant to the adjutant of our companion Brigade, complaining that they were portioning off more rooms than they were entitled to. Still he was pleased to find that the room he and I shared contained a wardrobe, and that inside the door was pinned a grotesque, jolly-looking placard of Harry Tate—moustache and all—in "Box o' Tricks." The discovery that a currant cake, about as large as London, sent a few days before from England, had disappeared from our Headquarters' mess-cart during the day's march, led to a tirade on the shortcomings of New Army servants. But he became sympathetic when I explained that the caretakers, two sad-eyed French women, the only civilians we ourselves met that day, were anxious that our men should be warned against prising open locked doors and cupboards. "Tell 'em any man doing that will be shot at dawn," he said, leaving me to reassure the women.
Twenty-four hours later, after another march, our guns were in position. With pick and shovel, and a fresh supply of corrugated iron, the batteries were fortifying their habitations; Brigade Headquarters occupied the only dwelling for miles round, a tiny café that no shell had touched. The colonel had a ground-floor room and a bedstead to himself; the adjutant and myself put down our camp-beds in an attic, with the signalling officer and the American doctor next door, and H.Q. signallers and servants in the adjoining loft that completed the upper storey. It was a rain-proof comfortable shelter, but the C.R.A. didn't altogether approve of it. "You're at a cross-roads, with an ammunition dump alongside of you, and the road outside the front door is mined ready for blowing up should the Boche advance this way," he said grimly, when he visited us. "In any case, he'll shoot by the map on this spot immediately he starts a battle.... I think you ought to have a retiring headquarters in readiness." So I put in two days superintending the erection of a little colony of houses, built of ammunition boxes and corrugated iron, half a mile from the main road. I camouflaged the sloping roofs with loose hay, and, at a distance, our "Garden City" looked like a bunch of small hay-stacks. We got quite proud of our handiwork; and there was a strained moment one midday when the regimental sergeant-major rode hurriedly to the café with a most disturbing report. Riding along the main road he had observed a party of men pulling down our huts, and piling the sheets of corrugated iron into a G.S. waggon. When he cantered across, the driver whipped up his horses, and the G.S. waggon bounded over the open fields for half a mile before the sergeant-major got sufficiently near to order it to halt. "They belong to the —st Brigade, sir," the sergeant-major informed the adjutant, "and I've told the sergeant in charge of the party to consider himself under arrest until you have seen him."
The adjutant, eye flashing, nostrils dilated, was already out of the café walking hard, and breathing dire threats against the servant who had been posted to guard our new home. Apparently he had gone away to complain that the cook was late in sending his dinner.
The sergeant and his assistant "pirates" were restoring the dismantled huts by the time the adjutant and myself drew near. The sergeant was plainly a disciple of the "It's all in the same firm" school. He submitted, with great respect, that he was innocent of criminal intent. There was nothing to show that the huts were in use ... and his battery wanted iron for their gun-pits.
"None of your old soldier talk with me," blustered the adjutant, shaking a ponderous forefinger. "You knew you were doing wrong.... Why did you send the waggon off when you saw the sergeant-major?"
"I went after it and stopped it when he told me to, sir," returned the sergeant.
The sergeant-major admitted that, strictly speaking, this was a correct statement. There was a ten seconds' pause, and I wondered what the adjutant's next thrust would be.
"The waggon was trotting away, was it?" he demanded slowly.