The following day was more or less a repetition of the first, except that we made fewer mistakes and "dropped into action" with more style and finish. We were now becoming fully aware of the almost-forgotten fact that a field battery is designed to be a mobile unit, and we were just beginning to take shape as such when our time was over. A day's rest for the horses and then we returned to our comfortable rest billets. It had been a strenuous week, but I think every one had thoroughly enjoyed it....
We have had two days in which to "clean up," and now to-morrow we are to relieve another battery and take our place in the line again. Our holiday is definitely over. It will take a little time to settle down to the old conditions: our week's practice of open warfare has spoilt us for this other kind. We who have climbed hills and looked over miles of rolling country will find an increased ugliness in our old flat surroundings. It will seem ludicrous to put our guns into pits again—the guns that we have seen bounding over rough ground behind the straining teams. To be cooped up in a brick O.P. staring at a strip of desolation will be odious after our bivouacs under the stars and our dashes into action under a blazing sun. Worst of all, perhaps, is the thought that the battery will be split up again into "gun line" and "wagon line," with three miles or more separating its two halves, instead of its being, as it has been all these weeks, one complete cohesive unit. But what must be, must be; and it is absurd to grumble. Moreover—the end is not yet.
"Let's toss up for who takes first turn at the O.P. when the relief is completed," suggested the Child.
"Wait a minute," said I, remembering something suddenly. "Do you know what to-day is?"
"Friday," he volunteered, "and to-morrow ought to be a half-holiday, but it won't be, 'cos we're going into action."
I passed the port round again. "It's only a fortnight since we celebrated the battery's first birthday," I said, "but to-day the Royal Regiment of Artillery is two hundred years old. Let's drink its health."
And we did.