Such was the state of affairs when O'Rourke opened his eyes on the morning of Saturday, April 24th. The horses were dimly visible through the heavy mist, his blankets were wringing wet, and hazily he wondered why he had ever been born. Then the cook dropped the bacon in the fire, and he groaned with anguish; visions of yesterday's grilled kidneys and hot coffee rose before him and mocked. By six o'clock he had fed, and sitting on an overturned biscuit-box beside the road he watched three batteries of French 75's pass by and disappear in the distance. At intervals he longed to meet the man who invented war. It must be remembered that, though I have given the situation as it really was, for the better understanding of the story, the facts at the time were not known at all clearly. The fog of war still wrapped in oblivion--as far as regimental officers were concerned, at any rate--the events which were taking place within a few miles of them. When, therefore, Dick O'Rourke perceived an unshaven and unwashed warrior, garbed as a gunner officer, coming down the road from Woesten, and, moreover, recognised him as one of his own term at the "Shop," known to his intimates as the Land Crab, he hailed him with joy. "All hail, oh, crustacean!" he cried, as the other came abreast of him. "Whither dost walk so blithely?" "Halloa, Dick!" The gunner paused. "You haven't seen my major anywhere, have you?" "Not that I'm aware of, but as I don't know your major from Adam, my evidence may not be reliable. What news from the seat of war?" "None that I know of--except this cursed gun, that is rapidly driving me to drink." "What cursed gun? I am fresh from Ciro's and the haunts of love and ease. Expound to me your enigma, my Land Crab." "Haven't you heard? When the Germans----" He stopped suddenly. "Listen!" Perfectly clear from the woods to the north of them--the woods that lie to the west of the Woesten-Oostvleteren road, for those who may care for maps--there came the distinctive boom! crack! of a smallish gun. Three more shots, and then silence. The gunner turned to Dick. "There you are--that's the gun." "But how nice! Only, why curse it?" "Principally because it's German; and those four shots that you have just heard have by this time burst in Poperinghe." "What!" O'Rourke looked at him in amazement. "Is it my leg you would be pulling?" "Certainly not. When the Germans came on in the first blind rush after the French two small guns on motor mountings got through behind our lines. One was completely wrecked with its detachment The motor mounting of the other you can see lying in a pond about a mile up the road. The gun is there." He pointed to the wood. "And the next!" said O'Rourke. "D'you mean to tell me that there is a German gun in that wood firing at Poperinghe? Why, hang it, man! it's three miles behind our lines."