Suddenly crash! bang! clash! boom! bang! We almost jump out of our skins. Where the deuce were all those guns hidden? From all about us, and far away behind and on either flank, our guns have begun strafing. The most hideous and deafening din. The ground seems to shake. Then an order comes that we are to clear out at once. We do so. The Boches haven't answered yet, but they will. The whole thing seems quite unreal. The men vastly entertained. I honestly felt as if I were at some exciting melodrama. The least cessation of the guns, and I found myself saying: "Don't stop! don't stop!" I shouted into Corporal Nutley's car: "Can you hear what I'm saying?" and he answered: "No, sir." At last we got out into the little path, and had to double along through the mud. Humphry was last man out, and he saw the one and only shell the Boches sent over, exploding quite close to the aforementioned dug-out. Isn't it funny. The Boches don't apparently know of this dug-out, or of the cable trenches, or they would, of course, smash it to pieces. And, for some reason that I haven't yet grasped, they never reply to our guns immediately. They wait for perhaps ten minutes, and _then_ they don't always reply to the same spot we spoke from. As, for example, this wood. Our guns were all in and round about the wood. The Boches apparently strafed back at an unoffending village on the west side of the hill. So, with our guns still behaving like things delirious, we eventually reached the horses. Jezebel was quietly gorging herself with long luscious grass beside the hedge. She told me she hadn't noticed anything unusual. Poor Swallow was standing quite still, with his nostrils wide open, breathing hard and trembling all over. A good many horses were trembling, but the majority agreed with Jezebel: "It's only some silly nonsense on the part of those Human Beings again. Don't listen." Then we saddled up and rode back to a place well behind, where we could exercise the beasties. They had been given no exercise for three days. And so home again to this farm. The horses are all in a field surrounded by trees, and couldn't be seen from above at all. I have seen lots of other horse-lines of other units, though, much closer to the front than this is--quite open to view. The fact is, I think, that Hun aircraft very seldom indeed gets across into our preserves. [Illustration: LE MONT DES CATS Near YPRES In the early days of the war spies used to signal from the monastery on the top of this hill. The country round about is quite flat and water-logged.] _July 6._ [Sidenote: THE ROADS NEAR DRANONTRE] Overnight it appears in orders that the roads from ---- to ---- via ---- are to be reported on with reference to their suitability for heavy transport, guns, cavalry, infantry, etc.