Pushed and the Return Push | Page 8

you good."
"No, thank you, sir," replied Hetherton, and this time he saluted with body as erect and arm as taut as if on parade. In another second he had vanished.
There was tense silence as the colonel seized the telephone.
"Put me through to B Battery," he said. Turning towards me, he added: "Turn out all the men not on telephone duty to take post on the top of the quarry."
I slipped out and passed the order to the sergeant in charge of the signallers, roused up the servants, and saw that each man had his rifle.
"Now, Duncombe," I said to the left-handed orderly who had beaten the infantry crack shot a few days before, "you may have a chance to see if your eye is in to-day."
When I got back to the mess, I learned that the infantry had news that the Boche was coming over the crest towards our battle positions. The major commanding B Battery had told the colonel that his battery and A had the enemy in full view, and were firing with open sights. "We are killing hundreds of 'em, sir," he had reported with delightful insouciance.
One sharp outburst from the colonel. As he came outside to see if our twenty-odd men were placed in the best positions for defending the quarry, he looked across and noted that the officers' chargers were saddled up, and that the grooms were leading them on to the road above.
"Stop those horses!" he called out angrily. "Who gave orders for them to leave? Have my horses unsaddled at once. There's always some damn fellow who does a stupid thing like that and puts the wind up people."
The situation was really saved by the adjutant's new charger, which, startled by an overcoat the groom had flung over him, began the best exhibition of bucking he had given since he joined us. As he was in the lead, and access to the road was by a narrow closed-in track, no one could get by him.
The grooms in a shamefaced way protested that some one had passed the "Saddle-up" order, and had a few hectic stinging words addressed to them. Apparently a mounted orderly, galloping past with a message, had shouted out something about the enemy being close behind.
The incident being closed, the colonel and myself strapped on belts and revolvers. The colonel glanced swiftly at the map position of the battery that the approaching Huns had scuppered, and then said quickly--
"Whatever happens, we shall have time for something to eat. Tell Manning to bring in lunch."

III. THE END OF A BATTERY.
We none of us exactly enjoyed that lunch. It was a nice lunch, too: the steak cut thin, like steak à la minute, and not overdone, with crisp onion sprigs--"bristled onions" the cook always called them; and, wonder of wonders! a pudding made by cribbing our bread allowance, with plum jam and a few strips of macaroni to spice it up. But the thought that the Boche had scuppered C Battery not a thousand yards away, and was coming on, did not improve the appetite. And news of what was really happening was so scant and so indefinite! The colonel commented once on the tenderness of the steak, and then looked thoughtful; the doctor remained dumb; for myself, I felt keyed up to the state that seems to clear the mind and to make one doubly alert in execution, but my hand did perhaps shake a trifle, and I drank two whiskies instead of my usual one. I thought of one or two things I ought to have done and had left undone. I remember feeling distinctly annoyed because a particular hair lotion on its way from England might not be delivered. I made sure that a certain discoloured Edward and Alexandra Coronation medal--given me for luck--was secure in my pocket-book, and stuffed my breast-pockets with all the cigars they would hold.
Lunch was finished in about eight minutes, and the imperturbable Manning cleared away.
"What about these Defence File papers and the maps on the wall, sir?" I asked the colonel, my mind harking back to newspaper accounts of German strategic documents captured by us in some of our advances.
"Tear them up and put them on the fire. We won't destroy this map"--pointing to a neat and graphic piece of coloured draughtsmanship showing infantry and artillery dispositions--"until we have to."
I got to work, and the fire crackled joyously. "Don't say we shall have to leave these to the Hun, doctor!" I said in shocked tones, picking up four copies of his adored 'Saturday Evening Post.'
The doctor smiled vaguely, but answered nothing.
Hostile shelling had ceased in our neighbourhood. The sound our ears waited for was the "putt--puttr--putt" of machine-guns, always the indication of a near infantry attack. I went out and made sure that the