Now, it must be remembered that General Smith-Dorrien had absolutely no reserves on which to draw if any part of his line began to bend back. The usual plan is, of course, to keep certain fresh regiments concentrated at given spots to move up in support as and when required. But now, if the Inniskillings were getting badly cut up and a gap was being made, the G.O.C. could only call upon the Cheshires, say, a mile off, who were not being so strongly attacked, to send a company or so to the help of their comrades. Another thing. I have hinted in a previous chapter that the threads of communication with the ammunition supply were badly stretched to breaking-point, owing to the astonishing speed at which the British had to retire. Normally, the ammunition parks (motor transport) draw the ammunition supplies from railhead, and carry it up to the divisional ammunition columns. These, in turn, distribute to brigade columns, and the actual units draw upon the last named. Thus there are several links between railhead and the firing-line, and the motor-lorries should not come within about eight miles of the line. But on this Wednesday and the two or three following days all this arrangement literally went to pieces. How could it be otherwise? And that is how the A.S.C. drivers came to do their bit with all the rest. Speed was vital, and the lorries could cover the distance in a third of the time taken by the horse transport. In fact, the horse transport was ignored or forgotten, although there were exceptions. One saw the divisional columns aimlessly trekking about the country, at one moment under orders to go to a certain village, only to find on arrival that the enemy were just a mile off; back they would come again as hard as the tired horses could do it. Time and again an urgent message would go back from a battery for more 18-pr. or howitzer, and the dispatch-rider would have instructions to get the stuff wherever he could lay hands on it. He generally managed to find a few lorries of a "park," and so off the bus drivers would start with their three-ton vehicles, little dreaming that they were going under fire.