To this day, on the anniversary of the battle, in the mess of K3 Battery, R.H.A., it is the custom, when the King's health has been drunk, for the President to say——
"Mr. Vice, to the memory of the man who brought away the last gun." And the Vice-president answers, "Gentlemen, to Driver Snatt."
Then the curious visitor is shown a large oil painting of a pair of bright bay horses with a little wizened driver riding one of them.
"That's Snatty," they will say, "a drunken scoundrel if you like, but he loved those horses, and he used to drive like hell."
FIVE-FOUR-EIGHT
I
Rain! pitiless, incessant, drenching rain, that seemed to ooze and trickle and soak into every nook and cranny in the world, beat down upon the already sodden ground and formed great pools of water in every hollow. Fires blazed and flickered at intervals, revealing within the glowing circles of their light the huddled forms of weary soldiers; and all the myriad sounds of a huge camp blended imperceptibly with the raindrops' steady patter.
According to orders the ——th Division had concentrated upon the main army for the impending battle. At dawn that day its leading battalion had swung out of camp to face the storm and the mud; not until dusk had the last unit dropped exhausted into its bivouac. For fourteen hours the troops had groped their way along the boggy roads: and they had marched but one-and-twenty miles. Incredibly slow! incredibly wearisome! But they had effected the purpose of their chief. They had arrived in time.
The headquarters of the divisional artillery had been established in a ramshackle old barn at one corner of the field in which the batteries were camped. Within its shelter the General and his staff of three crouched over a small fire. The roof leaked, the floor was wet and indescribably filthy; their seats were saddles, and their only light a guttering candle. But to those four tired men, the little fire, the dirty barn, the thought of food and sleep, seemed heaven.