Hush Hall, or the Chateau de Quelquechose, is a modern country house, and once stood up white and gleaming in all its brave finery of stucco, conservatories, and ornamental lake, amid a pleasant wood not far from a main road.  It is such a house as you might find round about Guildford or Hindhead.  There are many in this fair countryside, but few are inhabited now, and none by their rightful owners.  They are all marked on the map, and the Boche gunners are assiduous map-readers.  Hush Hall has got off comparatively lightly.  It is still habitable, and well furnished.  The roof is demolished upon the side most exposed to the enemy, and many of the trees in the surrounding wood are broken and splintered by shrapnel.  Still, provided the weather remains passable, one can live there.  Upon the danger-side the windows are closed and shuttered.  Weeds grow apace in the garden.  No smoke emerges from the chimneys. (If it does, the Mess Corporal hears about it from the Staff Captain.) A few strands of barbed wire obstruct the passage of those careless or adventurous persons who may desire to explore the forbidden side of the house.  The front door is bolted and barred:  visitors, after approaching stealthily along the lee of a hedge, like travellers of dubious bona fides on a Sunday afternoon, enter unobtrusively by the back door, which is situated on the blind side of the chateau.  Their path thereto is beset by imploring notices like the following:—­

  THE SLIGHTEST MOVEMENT DRAWS SHELL
  FIRE.  KEEP CLOSE TO THE HEDGE

A later hand has added the following moving postscript:—­

  WE LIVE HERE.  YOU DON’T!

It was the Staff Captain who was responsible for the rechristening of the establishment.

“What sort of place is this new palace we are going to doss in?” inquired the Machine-Gun Officer, when the Staff Captain returned from his preliminary visit.

The Staff Captain, who was a man of a few words, replied—­

“It’s the sort of shanty where everybody goes about in felt slippers, saying ‘Hush!’”

* * * * *

Brigade Headquarters—­this means the Brigadier, the Brigade Major, the Staff Captain, the Machine-Gun Officer, the Signal Officer, mayhap a Padre and a Liaison Officer, accompanied by a mixed multitude of clerks, telegraphists, and scullions—­arrived safely at their new quarters under cover of night, and were hospitably received by the outgoing tenants, who had finished their evening meal and were girded up for departure.  In fact, the Machine-Gun Officer, Liaison Officer, and Padre had already gone, leaving their seniors to hold the fort till the last.  The Signal Officer was down in the cellar, handing over ohms, amperes, short-circuits, and other mysterious trench-stores to his “opposite number.”