round braziers of glowing coals.  We had some parley with the company commander, who was of the earth earthy.  His words were few and discouraging.  As we crawled on, darkness enveloped us, but we dared not light our head-lamps.  Suddenly the car slipped on the greasy road, staggered, and lurched over into the morass, hurling us violently upon our sides.  We clambered out and contemplated it solemnly as we saw our right wheels over the axles in mud.  No friendly billet was now in sight, and as we stood profanely considering our plight the darkness behind us was split by a long shaft of greenish light, and the whole landscape was illuminated with a pallid glow, as the German star-shells discharged themselves over the fan-like tops of the elms silhouetted against the sky.  The jack was useless in the soft mud, it sank like a stone, and as we shoved and cursed we awaited each fresh discharge of the star-shells with increasing apprehension, for we presented an obvious target to the enemy’s snipers.  On the seat of the car was my despatch-box, and in that box was a little dossier of papers marked “O.H.M.S.  German Atrocities.  Secret and Confidential.”  “If the Germans catch us there’ll be one atrocity the more,” remarked my Staff Officer grimly, “but they’ll spare us the labour of recording it.”

Our futile efforts were interrupted by the sound of feet upon the causeway as a column of reliefs loomed up out of the darkness.  A hurried altercation in low tones, a subdued word of command, and a dozen men, their rifles and entrenching tools slung over their shoulders, applied themselves to the back of our car, and slowly it slithered out of the mud.  The column broke into file to allow us to pass, my companion went on ahead with a tiny electric torch to show the way, and with infinite caution we nudged slowly along the rank, the faint light of the torch bringing face after face out of the darkness into chiaroscuro, faces young and fresh and ruddy.  Not a word was spoken save a whispered command carried down the rank, mouth to ear, “No smoking, no talking “—­“No smoking, no talking “—­“No talking, no smoking.”  Mules, carrying sections of machine-guns and packs of straw, loomed up out of the darkness as we passed, until the last of the column was reached and the frieze of ghostly figures was swallowed up into the night.  We drew a long breath, for we knew now from the colonel of the battalion whose men had delivered us from that Slough of Despond that we had been within 150 yards of the German lines.  We had mistaken Richebourg l’Avoue for Richebourg St. Vaast.

VIII

IDOLS OF THE CAVE