Everybody was in a great rush and, although I did not know when our attack was to take place, I felt that it might happen at any moment; and so, not worrying about my billet, I started off in my side-car to see General Thacker at Chateau Longeau. I found, as I passed through Boves and other villages, that the whole Canadian Corps was concentrated in the neighbourhood. The dusty roads were crowded with lorries, tanks, whippets and limbers, besides numbers of men. When I got to Chateau Longeau I found, to my surprise, that the General had gone to Battle Headquarters in Gentelles Wood, and an officer whom I met on the road told me that zero hour was on the following morning. I determined therefore not to return to the archiepiscopal palace (p. 273) at St. Feuchien, but to go off to the attack. I returned to Boves, where, having washed and shaved, I had dinner in a damaged house with some officers of a light trench mortar battery, and after dinner started on my way to Gentelles Wood. It was a time of intense excitement. Less than a week ago we had been in the line at Arras, and now we were about to make our great attack at Amiens. The warm summer evening was well-advanced when I reached our Battle Headquarters behind the wood. All the staff officers were so busy that to ask one a question was like putting a spark to a powder magazine, so I kept out of their way and journeyed up the road to the barrier beyond which no vehicle was allowed to pass. I said good-bye to Lyons and then started off to find the trenches from which the 16th Battalion was going to lead the charge. CHAPTER XXX. (p. 274) THE BATTLE OF AMIENS. _August 8th to 16th, 1918._