Likewise one composite “Scrum” of French, American, English, and Italian troops was holding, it might be hoped, a German capital attack near Rheims. The old war-line that in the remote days of winter would have called itself the Somme front discussed and digested these news and many more. There was nothing doing on their beat to write home about, even were they allowed to do so. The question was whether they would be called on to repair to the Lys and free Hazebrouck, which was undoubtedly still in a dangerous position, or stand still and await what might befall at Amiens. There was no limit to speculation and argument any more than there had been when the Somme front went in March, and the more they argued the more confused men grew over the confidential information that was supplied them. (“Them Gen’rals, and their Staffs must ha’ done quite a little lyin’--even for them. They had _us_ believin’ their word! I’ve heard since even Jerry believed ’em.”) That would appear to have been the trouble with the enemy. It was evident to the most hardened pessimist that a French counter-attack launched out of the Villers-Cotterêts Forests, to begin with (and in several other places at, apparently, the same time), was _not_ the flash-in-the-pan that some people foretold. For the second time the enemy was withdrawing from the Marne, and, under pressure, continuing his withdrawal. His great attack near Rheims, too, seemed to have stuck. On the Lys, from time to time, sites of villages with well-remembered names were occasionally returning to their lawful trustees. Hopeful students of the war hinted that, with fresh troops in vast numbers, more guns, and a share of luck, 1918 might see the foundations laid for a really effective finish in 1919. A report had come up from the south that the French down Amiens way had made an experimental attack, or rather a big raid, on the enemy, and had found him there curiously “soft” and willing to shift. The air thickened with lies as the men, who moved about the earth by night or under cover, increased, and our air-craft were told off to circle low and noisily at certain points and drown the churn of many tanks trailing up into their appointed areas. All the Canadian divisions, men said, were moving off to recapture Kemmel Hill. All our forces round Amiens were digging themselves in, said others, preparatory to a wait-and-see campaign that would surely last till Christmas. For proof, it was notorious that our guns in that sector were doing nothing. (As a matter of fact they were registering on the sly.) Everybody round Amiens, a third party insisted, would be sent off in a day or two to help the French in Champagne. The weaknesses of human nature in possession of “exclusive information” played into the hands of the very few who knew, and young staff officers of innocent appearance infernally bamboozled their betters.