neatly; we felt thankful we had left it so. They stamped out again, and
we heard the Colonel's voice raised in protest next door. The doctor and
I looked at one another. He seemed rather pale, and I noticed for the
first time that his head rested on an enormous soft pillow covered with
a spotless linen pillow-slip edged with beautiful lace.

But next morning we had a different awakening. Dawn was rising wanly
from the east to another day on the Salient. The broken windows were
rattling and the floor trembling under the dull continuous thudding of a
concentrated bombardment. We lay and listened, and for the thousandth
time hated war. We knew that men, some of whom we knew and loved, were
going over the parapet, many never to return.

That night, as dusk fell, the old steeple with its rent side looked down
on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to
move. Here and there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his
chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang
on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly.
These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face;
but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical
endurance which the old battalion, since the great retreat, had ever
known.


II

_The Bluff_

What had happened was this. Soon after our division had been moved back
to the rest area, part of the line which it had been holding was