"Steady, there! Ye don't want to ride the sentries down, do ye?" The camp buildings had leaped out at us from the yellow haze of our own progress, and the corporal of the guard had flattened himself against a wall--just in time. We pulled up and rode in soberly. Men of other troops dashed at us and held our horses. "Lucky devils!" they said, and bade us get our bandoliers and rifles. From them we learned that a German patrol had lain in wait for the water convoy at a point some three miles up the line, had potted one of our men through the thigh, and had retired without our fellows being able to fire a shot in exchange, and now, we--"lucky 4," they called us--were going out to hunt them. "And I don't suppose they've gone far," one informed me. "I expect they'll be waiting for you, an' p'raps they'll shoot one of you. I know I hope they will--you lucky, lucky devils!" Into the press of chaff and counter-chaff, and the excitement of straps and buckles, rode one, speaking with the large voice of small authority, and hung about with "the complete campaigner's outfit." Not a detail--if we except the camp-stretcher and the cork-mattress--was missing. Water-bottle, haversack, prismatic compass, field-glasses, first-aid outfit, and sand goggles--the White Knight again! As a quick-change artist he should have commanded our ready admiration. As it was, he provided just that sobering touch of humor that we needed. "Goin' to take all week to get ready?" he queried with that heavy urbanity which N.C.O.'s and stage managers mistake for satire, "... passel o' ladies' maids!" "Oh! you--you May queen!" I heard some one say, and the troop giggled helplessly as we swung into our saddles. "Number off from the right!" the order was barked at us. "One"--"two"--"three"----. The fourth man was having trouble with his pony and was far too busy to think of mere numbers, and the White Knight glared down the line of us as if, in some way, just outside his comprehension, we were all to blame. "As you were!" he snapped--it sounded like "Zwear!" "Number off from the ri----" "No time for that now, Sergeant!" spoke the crisp voice of the O.C. from somewhere behind us. "Sections left! Walk! march! Tr-r-ot!" and the quick dust rose to the forward surge of horses and men, and we were off.