"WHEN WE BEGIN TO PUSH" "Here we are," said the Colonel, halting his horse. "Fine view one gets from here." "Rather a treat to be able to see over a bit of country again, after so many months of the flat," said, the Adjutant, reining up beside the other. They were halted on the top of a hill, or, father, the corner of an edge on a wide plateau. On two sides of them the ground fell away abruptly, the road they were on dipping sharply over the edge and sweeping round and downward in a well-graded slope along the face of the hill to the wide flats below. Over these flats they could see for many miles, miles of cultivated fields, of little woods, of gentle slopes. They could count the buildings of many farms, the roofs of half a dozen villages, the spires of twice as many churches, the tall chimneys and gaunt frame towers of scattered pit-heads. It had been raining all day, but now in the late afternoon the clouds had broken and the light of the low sun was tinging the landscape with a mellow golden glow. "There's going to be a beautiful sunset presently," said the Colonel, "with all those heavy broken clouds about. Let's dismount and wait for a bit." Both dismounted and handed their reins to the orderly, who, riding behind them, had halted when they did, but now at a sign came forward. "We'll just stroll to that rise on the left," the Colonel said. "The best view should be from there." The Adjutant lingered a moment. "Take their bits out, Trumpeter," he said, "and let them pick a mouthful of grass along the roadside." A rough country track ran to the left off the main road, and the two walked along it a couple of hundred yards to where it plunged over the crest and ran steeply down the hillside. Another main road ran along the flat parallel with the hill foot, and along this crawled a long khaki column. "Look at the light on those hills over there," said the Colonel. "Fine, isn't it?" The Adjutant was busily engaged with the field-glasses he had taken from the case slung over his shoulder and was focusing them on the road below. "I say," he remarked suddenly, "those are the Canadians. I didn't know the ----th Division was so far south. Moving up front, too." The Colonel dropped his gaze to the road a moment and then swept it slowly over the country-side. "Yes," he said, "and this area is pretty well crowded with troops when you look closely."