MIDNIGHT IN THE FRONT LINE.
7th November.
"So you knew those people that have just gone by in the carriage, Lovel."
"How should I know them?"
"Then why did you let them past you?"
"It's true, I wasn't strict enough. But they roared out such a G.H.Q.[C] at me that I didn't dare to stop them."
[C] General Head Quarters.
"Wave your lantern, Lovel. Here's another carriage."
So chatted, during this night of 7th November, on the road to Bapaume, two of His Majesty's Tommies. They were two scrubby little Scotsmen. Each wore his tam-o'-shanter falling over one eye.
The night was almost beautiful; the sky covered with fleecy clouds, among which, like a great liquid eye, the moon showed herself now and then. We were going to spend the night in the English lines.