I made it so, received the order to stand down, put the fitter and the limber gunners on to sponging out,--and tried to convince myself that all the noise down in front was miles away from the Major and Pip Don.--It seemed years before they strolled in, a little muddy but as happy as lambs. It occurred to me then that I knew something at least of what our women endured at home every day and all day,--just one long suspense, without even the compensation of _doing_ anything. The raid came off an hour or so later like clockwork, without incident. Not a round came back at us and we stood down eventually with the feeling of having put in a good day’s work. We were a very happy family in those days. The awful discouragement of Limerick had lifted. Bombardments and discomforts were subjects for humour, work became a joy, “crime” in the gun line disappeared and when the time arrived for sending the gunners down to the wagon line for a spell there wasn’t one who didn’t ask if he might be allowed to stay on. It was due entirely to the Major. For myself I can never be thankful enough for having served under him. He came at a time when one didn’t care a damn whether one were court-martialled and publicly disgraced. One was “through” with the Army and cared not a curse for discipline or appearances. With his arrival all that was swept away without a word being said. Unconsciously he set a standard to which one did one’s utmost to live, and that from the very moment of his arrival. One found that there was honour in the world and loyalty, that duty was not a farce. In some extraordinary way he embodied them all, forcing upon one the desire for greater self-respect; and the only method of acquiring it was effort, physical and mental, in order to get somewhere near his high standard. I gave him the best that was in me. When he left the brigade, broken in health by the ceaseless call upon his own effort, he wrote me a letter. Of all that I shall take back with me to civil life from the Army that letter is what I value most. 7 We had all cherished the hope that we had seen the last of the town; that Right Group, commanded by our own colonel, would keep us in our present position. There was a distinct drop in the mental temperature when, the raid over, we received the order to report back to Left Group. But we still clung to the hope that we might be allowed to choose a different gun position. That avenue of trees was far too accurately pin-pointed by the Hun. Given, indeed, that there were many other places from which one could bring just as accurate and concentrated fire to bear on our part of the zone, it was criminal folly to order us back to the avenue. That, however, was the order. It needed a big effort to find any humour in it.