But all this was as light, casual, and unrelated as the throwing of the ball from hand to hand that fills time before an innings; and, by the latter part of July, men began half unconsciously to speculate when our innings would begin. In the north, the enemy, crowded into the Lys salient, which they had been at such pains to hack out over the bodies of the 2nd Battalion, were enjoying some of the pleasures our men had tasted round Ypres for so many years. Our gathering guns, cross-ploughing them where they lay, took fresh toll of each new German division arriving to make good the wastage. In the south, outside Amiens, the Australians, an impenitent and unimpressionable breed, had, on the 4th of July, with the help of four companies of the Thirty-third American Division, and sixty tanks, gone a-raiding round the neighbourhood of Hamel and Vaire Wood, with results that surprised everybody except themselves. They did not greatly respect the enemy, and handled him rudely. Meantime, Amiens, raked over by aeroplanes almost every hour, was being wrecked and strangled; and all the Labour Corps, which, from the soldier’s point of view, could have been better used in saving poor privates cruel fatigues, were working day and night at railway diversions and doublings that, by some route or another, should bring the urgent supplies of both French and British armies to their destinations. Men argued, therefore, that the first job to be taken in hand would be the deliverance of Amiens. There was talk, too, that all French divisions in Flanders were withdrawn and concentrated behind Amiens city. This might be taken for a sign that the Lys salient was reckoned reasonably secure, and as confirming the belief that upon the Lys, also, we had abundance of artillery. On the other hand (these are but a few of the rumours of the time), away in the unknown south-east of France, where few British troops had penetrated in the memory of present fighting men, some five or six divisions, making the Ninth British Corps, had been sent for a “rest” after the March Push, and had been badly mauled by a sudden surprise-attack on the Aisne where, together with the Fifth French Army, they had been driven back towards the Marne, which all the world thought was a river and a battle long since disposed of. The enemy there were sitting practically outside the Forest of Villers-Cotterêts, a name also belonging to ancient history. Much-enduring men, whom Fate till now had spared, recounted how the 4th (Guards) Brigade, as it was then, had first “caught it” there, among the beech-trees very nearly four years back. Moreover, there was fresh trouble between Montdidier and Noyon, where the enemy were again throwing themselves at the French. Then, too, Foch, who was in charge of all, but who, so far, had made no sign, had borrowed four more of our divisions--the whole of the Twenty-second Corps this time--and they were off on some French front, Heaven and Headquarters alone knew where.