The major went back to the sunken road. The colonel and I walked straight ahead, each of us in all probability wondering whether the Boche machine-gunner was still on duty, and whether he would regard us as worthy targets. That, at any rate, was my own thought. We strode out over the heavy-going across a strip of ploughed land, and heard the whizz of machine-gun bullets once more, not far from the spot we had just left. We did not speak until we descended to a dip in the ground, and reached a brook that had to be jumped. We were absolutely by ourselves. Up the slope, on the far side of the brook. More ploughed land. We were both breathing hard now. Before we came to the crest of the slope the colonel stopped. "We're in view from the Boche front line from the top," he said sharply. "The 'O.P.' is a hole in the ground.... You had better follow me about twenty yards behind.... And keep low.... Make for the fifth telegraph-pole from the left that you will see from the top." He moved off. I waited and then followed, my mind concentrated at first on the fifth telegraph-pole the colonel had spoken about. There was no shelling at this moment. A bird twittered in a hedge close by; the smell of grass and of clean earth rose strong and sweet. No signs or sound of war; only sunshine and trees and---- The colonel's voice came sharp as whipcord. "Keep down!--keep down!" I bent almost double and walked fast at the same time. My mind turned to September 1916, when I walked along Pozieres Ridge, just before the Courcellette fight, and was shouted at for not crouching down by my battery commander. But there were shells abroad that day.... I almost laughed to myself. I tumbled after the colonel into the square hole that constituted the "O.P."--it had been a Boche trench-mortar emplacement. The sweat dripped down my face as I removed my tin hat; my hair was wet and tangled. Johns, a subaltern of D Battery, was in the pit with a couple of telephonists. He was giving firing instructions to the battery. "What are you firing at, Johns?" inquired the colonel, standing on a step cut in the side of the pit, and leaning his elbows on the parapet. "Two hundred yards behind that road, sir--trench mortars suspected there, sir." He called, "All guns parallel!" down the telephone. "Don't you keep your guns parallel when you aren't firing?" asked the colonel quickly. "Isn't that a battery order?" Johns flushed and replied, "No, sir.... We left them as they were after night-firing." "But don't you know that it is an Army order--that guns should be left parallel?" "Y-e-es, sir." "Why don't you obey it, then?" "I thought battery commanders were allowed their choice. I----"