The other day I was ordered to visit a certain battery in the firing-line. No one had a ghost of an idea as to their present location, but I discovered where their supplies were being drawn from--a spot two miles from the line, which was being "strafed" daily. Off I went to this place in my car, but nobody there knew a thing about the people I wanted, so I had to go up to the railway station and crave the loan of a telephone. After a great deal of bother I got on to some genial soul who knew where the Brigade Headquarters were of the lot I was after. He told me where they had gone to, but whether they were still there or not he didn't know. Anyhow, it was a clue. So, like Pillingshot (in P. G.'s story), I worked on it. After consulting my maps, and chatting with dozens of military police, interpreters, etc., I took my car forward by a certain road. By this time it was pitch dark, except for star shells and gun flashes. The road was crammed with traffic. We took a wrong turning, and eventually found ourselves on an apology for a road that ended in a swamp full of shell-holes, and had to retrace our steps gingerly. After blundering about in the dark for some time we struck the village we were looking for, a hopeless sort of place crammed with Scotsmen, all exceedingly grimy, but gay and cheerful. In one house the men were waltzing to the strains of a mouth-organ, though the boom of the guns was shaking the house every second or so. Having reached the Headquarters I was in quest of, I ascertained from them that the battery with which I had business to do was now at a spot two miles away down a main road which was the scene of such desperate fighting not long back. The O.C. strongly advised me not to take the car down there, as if I did "it was likely that the car would stop some pieces of metal." There was nothing for it but to walk down the road leading to the recently captured village. It was very dark, but star-shells, with their weird green light, would illuminate the countryside every five minutes or so. In the darkness one could vaguely discern the shape of the first-line transport wagons taking up rations to the trenches, and small columns of silently marching men, and now and then a motor lorry belonging to some ammunition park. Presently, after what seemed an interminable walk, I found the battery, who themselves had only just arrived, and executed my job in a half-ruined house. To get back to my car I borrowed a horse and rode part of the way with a number of led horses, which, having brought up the guns, were going back to the wagon line.