That night instead of returning with the runner to the battery, Suzette stayed with us in the Front-line. When night had fallen and the snipers could no longer see her, she sat on the lip of the trench, staring out into the darkness towards Fransart. Once she pointed to a lone tree on the ridge, saying that she could see the village from there and asking me to allow her to go forward; but the enemy patrols were likely to be abroad, so I had to deny her. Several times I heard her sigh heavily and more than once I could have sworn that tears glistened in her eyes. She was realising all that she had lost. But how much she had lost even she did not know as yet, for every time I phoned back to the battery and questioned I received the same answer; there was no news of her child. At the Front men are missing very often for weeks before you find a trace of them. They stray into the enemy lines. They get wounded by a chance shell. Their nerve fails them at the moment when they have accomplished some heroic act and they desert. We had one man who brought in a wounded officer at the risk of his life and was recommended for a decoration. Then it was discovered that the man could not be found. When he was found, he was awarded the D. C. M. for valour and court-martialed for the cowardice of desertion. We never give up hope when a man goes missing until he is proved to be dead. But with a civilian it is different; there are no army records through which to trace and report them. Were Bully Beef found killed, it would be nobody’s business. At the Front one’s responsibility extends no further than to the men in khaki. Next morning on enquiring across the ‘phone, I was told that they had picked up a rumour: a child had been seen on the road between the wagon-lines and Death Corner. If that were so, it would mean that Bully Beef had wandered out of the wagonlines in the direction of the battery in search of his mother. He had come up once or twice to the battery-position with the ammunition-wagons, and would have a vague idea of the way. Seeing that he had not arrived at the battery, it was likely that he had gone past it; in which case he must be somewhere in the wheatfields between Death Corner and Fourquescourt. A detail of men were out searching for him, led by Big Dan.