After the capturing of Fransart our corps was drawn out and French troops were thrown in to hold the line which we had broken. Then the terrible night-marches re-commenced, for the enemy must not know where we were going. Again we must play the game of hiding, and vanish entirely. We must be the will-o’-the-wisps of the Western Front and disclose ourselves unheralded at a point where we were least expected. We ourselves must have no knowledge of our destination; our job must be to move like ghosts and to cover as much ground as possible under the shadow of darkness. At the end of the first stage we concealed ourselves in woods, which had in a day become familiar to all the English-speaking world. It was here that our cavalry surrounded an entire German cavalry division, entrained and on the point of pulling out. It was here that our infantry captured a Hun hospital, and set an example in chivalry by offering the nurses the choice between working for our wounded or a safe conduct to the lines of their own countrymen. It was here that Big Bertha was found—the long-range man-eater which had tried to murder Paris. But, sweetest of all memories, it was here, after the long drought, that the rain descended and we stripped off our clothes, stiff as boards with sweat, and ran naked through the leaves in the stinging downpour. On the evening of the second stage we passed through wheat-fields, recently re-captured from the enemy, still strewn with Australia’s unburied dead. Here troops were busily at work gathering in the harvest of the trampled grain. We realised then that it was not our blood alone, willingly as it was shed, that would restore peace and happiness to the world, but the thrift that could satisfy man’s bitter cry for bread. How many marches did we make? How often did we rest? I cannot remember now. What happened is all a blur. We crawled across a devastated land through a fog of moonlight, dawns and sunsets. We gave and obeyed orders mechanically. Our perceptions were dulled; we were mad for sleep. As soon as our eyes closed, the relentless word would go round to harness up and move on, always to move on; but to what were we marching?