Talk ran upon the extraordinary precautions taken to surprise the enemy. Field-guns were not to be moved up to their battle positions until the night before the attack. There was to be no digging in of guns, no earth was to be upturned. Reconnaissance likely to come under enemy observation had to be carried out with a minimum of movement. As few officers and men as was possible were to be made aware of the date and the scope of the operation. On a still night the creaking rattle of ammunition waggons on the move may be heard a very long way off. To prevent this noise of movement wheel tyres were lapped with rope; the play of the wheels was muffled by the use of leather washers. Straw had even to be laid on some of the roads--as straw is laid in front of houses where the seriously sick are lying. "I think," said the Australian signalling officer, "that the funniest thing is the suggestion in orders that telephone conversations should be camouflaged. I suppose that if some indiscreet individual asks over the 'phone whether, for instance, a new telephone line has been laid to a certain map point it is advisable to reply, 'No, he's dining out to-night.'" "Why not try a whistling code?" put in our adjutant. "Suppose you whistled the first line of 'Where my Caravan has rested,' that could mean 'At the waggon line.'" "And 'Tell me the old, old Story' would be 'Send in your ammunition returns at once,'" laughed Wilde, our signalling officer, who had been angered many times because his line to Divisional Artillery had been held up for that purpose. "And 'It's a long way to Tipperary' could be taken as 'Lengthen your Range,'" said one of the Australian officers in his soft drawl; while the exuberance reached its climax when some one suggested that "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" might be whistled to indicate that the Divisional Commander was expected at any moment. "You've had some of the Americans with you, haven't you?" asked our colonel of the Australian colonel. "How do you find them? We heard a humorous report that some of the Australian infantry were rather startled by their bloodthirstiness and the vigour of their language." The Australian colonel--one of those big, ugly, good-tempered men who attract friendship--laughed and replied, "I did hear one good story. A slightly wounded Boche was being carried on a stretcher to the dressing station by an American and one of our men. The Boche spoke a bit of English, and was talkative. 'English no good,' he said. 'French no good, Americans no good.' The stretcher-bearers walked on without answering. The Boche began again. 'The English think they're going to win the war,--they're wrong. You Americans think you've come to win,--you're wrong.' "Then the American spoke for the first and last time. 'You think you're going to be carried to hospital,--you're wrong. Put him down, Digger!' And that ended that.