Our billets were clean and very airy. For some reason, though all furniture had been removed, the presses, which were all open, were full of beautiful bed and table linen. It was very tempting, but fortunately we resisted the temptation. The morning after we arrived, about seven o'clock, a disturbance arose below. Angry women's voices were heard in altercation with the servants, there were hurried footsteps on the stair, and a moment later our door was thrust violently open. Two strapping Belgian women strode in and demanded answers to many questions. We adopted our friend the Major's plan, and feigned to know even less French than we did. We were anxious to be very inoffensive as we lay on the floor and watched these determined individuals throwing open the presses and wardrobes. Inside the linen lay untouched, folded neatly; we felt thankful we had left it so. They stamped out again, and we heard the Colonel's voice raised in protest next door. The doctor and I looked at one another. He seemed rather pale, and I noticed for the first time that his head rested on an enormous soft pillow covered with a spotless linen pillow-slip edged with beautiful lace. But next morning we had a different awakening. Dawn was rising wanly from the east to another day on the Salient. The broken windows were rattling and the floor trembling under the dull continuous thudding of a concentrated bombardment. We lay and listened, and for the thousandth time hated war. We knew that men, some of whom we knew and loved, were going over the parapet, many never to return. That night, as dusk fell, the old steeple with its rent side looked down on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to move. Here and there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly. These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face; but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical endurance which the old battalion, since the great retreat, had ever known. II _The Bluff_