IT’. midnight. We’re still in the copse. We believe we are to take part in a new attack tomorrow, but have received no orders as yet. I am squatting on the ground beneath a low tent made of Hun great-coats and sacking pinned together. On one side of me, more than half filling the tiny space, the Major lies asleep; on the other is a shaded candle and the telephone which keeps us in touch with brigade. Every quarter of an hour the brigade-signallers buzz me to make sure that the line is holding up. Every now and then I draw the flimsy patch-work of the roof nearer together lest any light should be escaping. Ever since darkness settled, the Hun planes have been bombing our back areas, getting after our horse-lines, ammunition dumps and infantry concentrations. When one of them has scored a direct hit on a dump, all the country within the radius of half a mile is flooded with a pulsating wave of red. While it lasts, no movement remains hidden from the watchers in the sky; a man stands out as distinctly as a tower. In the welter of blackness the glow of a cigarette, a match struck however furtively, the leakage of light from a bivouac, show up as significantly as beacon-fires. The human-eagles got after us in fine style two hours ago, coming so close that we had to ride our horses bare-back into the night, pursued from the air not only by bombs but also by machine-guns. Now all our men who are not on duty are trying to snatch what rest they can before another disturbance starts. There always is another, and a next and a next. The Hun airmen, having exhausted their supply of bombs, have flown back to replenish. They’re due to return almost any minute and will do their best again to pick up our scent. If we don’t attack to-morrow, we can’t stay here, now that we have been spotted. I’m appallingly sleepy and am scribbling chiefly in an effort to keep my eyes from closing. They feel as if they had been filled with dust; I have to wedge my lids up with my fingers to prevent them from falling. I can well understand how sentries drop off at their posts, despite the knowledge that they are committing a shooting offence. It’s strange to reflect that in civil life no money could have persuaded us to put up with one tithe of our discomforts, let alone with our dangers super-added. If we get back to a world of sheeted beds, all former necessities will seem forever luxuries.