The morning broke calm and bright. There was the stuffiness of yesterday's day indoors to be shaken off. I meant to go out early. It was our unwritten rule to leave the colonel to himself at breakfast, and I drove pencil and ruler rapidly, collating the intelligence reports from the batteries. I looked into the mess again for my cap and cane before setting forth. The colonel was drinking tea and reading a magazine propped up against the sugar-basin. "I'm going round the batteries, sir," I said. "Is there anything you want me to tell them--or are you coming round yourself later?" "No; not this morning. I shall call on the infantry about eleven--to talk about this next battle." "Right, sir!" He nodded, and I went out into the fresh cool air of a bracing autumn day. I did my tour of the batteries, heard Beadle's jest about the new groom who breathed a surprised "Me an' all?" when told that he was expected to accompany his officer on a ride up to the battery; and, leaving A Battery's cottage at noon, crossed the brook by the little brick bridge that turned the road towards our Headquarters farm, six hundred yards away. "The colonel rang up a few minutes ago to say that our notice-board at the bottom of the lane had been blown down. He wanted it put right, because the General is coming to see him this afternoon, and might miss the turning.... I've told Sergeant Starling. "Colonel B---- came in about eleven o'clock," went on the adjutant. "He's going on leave and wanted to say good-bye to the colonel." "Where is the colonel now," I asked, picking up some Divisional reports that had just arrived. "He's with the Heavies--he's been to the Infantry. I told him Colonel B---- had called, and he said he'd go round and see him--their mess is in the village, isn't it?" At twelve minutes past one the adjutant, Wilde, and myself sat down to lunch. "The colonel said he wouldn't be late--but we needn't wait," said the adjutant. "No; we don't want to wait," agreed Wilde, who had been munching chocolate. At a quarter-past one; "Crump!" "Crump!" "Crump!"--the swift, crashing arrival of three high-velocity shells. "I'll bet that's not far from A Battery," called Wilde, jumping up; and then settled down again to his cold beef and pickles. "First he's sent over to-day," said the adjutant. "He's been awfully quiet these last two days." Manning had brought in the bread-and-butter and apple pudding that Meddings had made to celebrate his return from leave, when the door opened abruptly. Gillespie, the D.A. gas officer stood there. It was the habit to complain with mock-seriousness that Gillespie timed his visits with our meal-times. I had begun calling "Here he is again," when something drawn, something staring in his lean Scotch face, stopped me. I thought he was ill.