Meanwhile, Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Stark, D.S.O. R.A., ruminated at the roadside. In front of him, the amazing traffic disentangled itself somehow; moved forward, a grotesque shadow-show, through the darkness. Behind him, he heard the jingle of harness, a battery moving forward over turf. He called out, “Who are you?” “B Battery 3rd Southdown Brigade,” came the answer. The battery disappeared. . . . Stark began to reason out his position. He knew Ballardyce of old: a sound fellow, the last person to disregard detail. Therefore, Ballardyce had not been told to keep touch with his guns at Le Rutoire. Point one settled. Point two—Murchison’s cryptic orders about the forward move. Murchison was over-conscientious in the transmission of orders. Followed that Murchison had practically no information. Point two settled. And with that—added to his own private telephone-talk to the Brigade Major of Seventh Artillery—Stark arrived at a definite conclusion: The blunder lay further back than either Southdown or Seventh Division Headquarters. Obviously. Because Rutton’s order to rendezvous with firstline transport at a village still in possession of the enemy, proved an entire misconception of the battle-front. . . . The Weasel had not wasted the hour it had taken his Adjutant to find the horses and return with them to the cross-roads. He had spent it in reconnoitring, as far as possible, the immediate ground; in acquiring miscellaneous scraps of information. Remained three problems—the exact position of our own front line, which section of it he would be asked to protect, and where to plant his batteries. And the Weasel thought: “This road runs straight into Loos village. There are no shells coming from that direction. We are supposed to have taken Loos. I think we have. Beyond Loos”—he consulted his map—“is this Hill 70. The chances are we have not taken Hill 70. There is a lot of hostile artillery fire coming from my left front. . . .” He timed with his watch the period between the discharges of the guns and the shell bursts over Vermelles. . . . “Those guns are not much over two thousand yards from me. I know for certain, because of the targets we were firing at this evening, that the centre of our original attack was held up: and if P.J.’s information about City Saint Élie was correct. . . .” “And by Jove it _was_ correct.” The Weasel suddenly broke into speech. “That gun-fire proves it. As sure as God made little apples I’m sitting on the base-line of a semi-circle, plum in the middle of a five-mile salient.” Then he took out his compass; laid it on the ground till the needle steadied; and turned due west. “Damn it,” said the Weasel, “what’s happened to the Véry Lights? . . .” And even as he spoke, directly to the south of him, he caught a faint white shimmer in the sky; and even as that faded, due north of him, he caught the barest glimpse of another. “Oh, hell!” thought the Weasel. “Oh, ruddy hell!”