LAST night we had another terrible march; neither the men nor the horses can stand much more of it. It isn’t a matter of stoutness of heart; it’s a plain question of physical endurance. How many more nights can men and horses go without sleep and bungle through the darkness of a strange country without collapsing? It isn’t as though these were easy marches—all of them are forced. And then again, it isn’t as though we had the knowledge that in a few days’ time our present exertions would be followed by a rest; on the contrary, we know that our present exertions are as nothing compared with what will be demanded of us. Everybody is extraordinarily willing—there’s no grumbling; but we’re working under a high nervous tension of suspense which, in itself, is exhausting. If we were actually in battle, our excitement would carry us twice as far without letting us drop. In the presence of death one can achieve the incredible; these miracles are difficult to accomplish while one still has a reasonable certainty. To tell the truth, our equipment isn’t equal to the strain which is being laid upon it. Our teams are not matched; many of them are worn out; some of them consist of mules. One wonders living, whether they could go into action at the gallop without falling down. For the past three years there’s been precious little galloping for the Field Artillery on the Western Front. Our work has consisted for the most part of dragging our guns up through mud at the crawl and afterwards of packing up ammunition on the horses’ backs. This has broken the hearts of the animals, and robbed us of our dash and snap. The animals which have been sent to us during the past two years to replace casualties are of an utterly inferior physique and stamp from those we had when war started. They’re either ponies or draught-horses, or else patched-up, decrepit old-timers from the veterinary hospitals, which have been ill or wounded, and have been returned to active service to die in harness because no others are available. Our best animals are the few survivors we have of the original teams which we brought with us from Canada to France.