The rain ceased and a cold sun shot feeble rays over the sullen December landscape. Again a halt was called; the brigadier-general, followed by two officers and several orderlies, galloped up, and a hurried consultation with our colonel took place. In a moment the battalion moved ahead only to come to a dead stop again after ten minutes' slow marching, and find a company detailed off to guard the rear. The other companies, led by their officers, turned off the road and moved in sections across the newly furrowed and soggy fields. A level sweep of December England broken only by leafless hedgerows and wire fencing stretched out in front towards a wooded hillock, that stood up black against the sky-line two miles away. The enemy held this wood; we could hear his guns booming and now considered ourselves under shell fire. Each squad of sixteen men marched in the rear or on the flank of its neighbour; this method of progression minimises the dangers of bursting shrapnel, for a shell falling in the midst of one body of men and causing considerable damage will do no harm to the adjacent party. Somewhere near us our gunners were answering the enemy's fire; but so well hidden were the guns that I could not locate them. We still crept slowly forward; section after section crawled across the black, ploughed fields, now rising up like giant caterpillars to the crest of a mound, and again dropping out of sight in the hollow land like corks on a comber. On our heels the ambulance corps followed with its stretchers, and in front the enemy was firing vigorously; over the belt of trees that lined the summit of the hillock little wisps of smoke could be seen rising and fading in the air. Suddenly we came into line with our guns hidden in a deep narrow cart-track, their dark muzzles trained on the enemy, and the gunners, knee-deep in the mire of the lane, sweating at their work. "We're under covering fire now," our young lieutenant explained, as we trudged forward, lifting enormous masses of clay on our boots at every step. "One battalion is engaged already; hear the shots." The rifles were barking on the left front; in a moment the reports from that quarter died away, and the right found voice. The men of the first line were in the trenches dug by us a fortnight earlier, and there they would remain, we knew, until their supports came to their aid. Already we passed several of them, who were detailed off on the anticipated casualty list in the morning. These wore white labels in their buttonholes, telling of the nature of their wounds. One label bore the words: "Shot in right shoulder; wound not dangerous." Another read: "Leg blown off," and a third ran: "Flesh wounds in arm and leg." These men would be taken into the care of the ambulance party when it arrived.