I covered the lad’s face. He was barely conscious and uttered no word. It seemed as if nothing could live in such a bombardment. A shell burst near, and the cry of dying horses rent the air. The traces were cut and the horses and gun-carriage drawn off the road. Every second I expected to see the horses and drivers in front of me blown into the air and I watched them with fascinated eyes. Not a man stirred. They sat on their horses and gun-carriages as though they were figures in bronze. Not a man sought the trench and not a man relieved the tension by going forward to see what was wrong or to lend a hand. Each knew his place, and if death sought him it would know where to find him. The horses felt that they had brave men on their backs and, in that mysterious way peculiar to horses, caught the spirit of their riders. Every shell covered men and horses with chalk and soil, but they remained an immobile as statuary. It was magnificent and it was war. A driver in the battery beside us got wounded in the leg and hand. He jumped off his horse and came to us to be bandaged. Then he leapt back into the saddle. It seemed an age, but I suppose it was only a few minutes, before the obstruction was removed. The whips flashed in the air and the horses sprang forward. The guns rocked and swayed as they swept past us and within a few minutes they were in their new positions under the hill upon which lay the ruins of Neuville Vitasse. The shelling ceased as suddenly as it had started and we lifted out our wounded soldier and went in the direction of the dressing station. Some distance up the road my attention was called to one of the drivers whom the artillery had left in the care of some privates. He was living, but his skull was broken, and he would never wake again to consciousness. He was fast "going West." His day was over and his work was done. I got him lifted on to a stretcher and taken to the dressing station so that he might die in peace and be buried in the little soldiers’ cemetery behind it. When I returned in the evening to our billet I told the transport officer of the magnificent bravery of the artillery drivers. "Any other drivers would behave just as well, if caught in the same trap," he replied. He spoke the simple truth. They would. Such supreme courage and devotion to duty are common to the army. Their presence among all ranks and in all sections of the army makes the fact the more wonderful. Both officers and men love life, but they love duty more, and commanders in drawing up their plans know that they can rely on their soldiers to carry them out. Our Tommies never fail us whether in France, Mesopotamia, or Palestine. Devotion to duty is inwoven with the fibers of their hearts. They are men who, either in kindness to captives or courage amid disaster and destruction, never fail us. *XIV* *THE CROSS AT NEUVE CHAPELLE*