“Where can I see them from!” said the Major quickly.

“I’ll show you,” said the subaltern, “if you’ll leave your horse and come with me through this wood.  It’s only a narrow belt of trees here.”

The Major turned to one of his subalterns who was with him at the head of the battery.

“Send back word to the captain to come up here and wait for me!” he said rapidly.  “Tell him what you have just heard this officer say, and tell him to give the word, ‘Prepare for action.’  And now,” he said, turning to the infantryman, “go ahead.”

The two of them jumped the ditch, scrambled up the bank, and disappeared amongst the trees.

A message back to the captain who was at the rear of the battery brought him up at a canter.  The subaltern explained briefly what he had heard, and the captain, after interrupting him to shout an order to “Prepare for action,” heard the finish of the story, pulled out his map, and pointing out on it a road shown as running through the trees, sent the subaltern off to reconnoiter it.

The men were stripping off their coats, rolling them and strapping them to the saddles and the wagon seats; the Numbers One, the sergeants in charge of each gun, bustling their gunners, and seeing everything about the guns made ready:  the gunners examining the mechanism and gears of the gun, opening and closing the hinged flaps of the wagons, and tearing the thin metal cover off the fuses.

It was all done smartly and handily, and one after another the sergeants reported their subsections as ready.  Immediately the captain gave the order to mount, drivers swung themselves to their saddles, and the gunners to their seats on the wagons, and all sat quietly waiting for whatever order might come next.

The lifting of the mist had shown a target to the gunners on both sides apparently, and the roar and boom of near and distant guns beat and throbbed quicker and at closer intervals.

In three minutes the Major came running back through the wood, and the captain moved to meet him.

“We’ve got a fair chance!” said the Major exultingly.  “One of their big guns clear in the open, and moving at a crawl.  I want you to take the battery along the road here, sharp to the right at the cross-road, and through the wood.  The Inf. tell me there is just a passable road through.  Take guns and firing battery wagons only; leave the others here.  When you get through the wood, turn to the right again, and along its edge until you come to where I’ll be waiting for you.  I’ll take the range-taker with me.  The order will be ‘open sights’; it’s the only way—­not time to hunt a covered position!  Now, is all that clear?”

“Quite clear,” said the captain tersely.

“Off you go, then,” said the Major; “remember, it’s quick work.  Trumpeter, come with me, and the range-taker.  Sergeant-major, leave the battery staff under cover with the first line.”