One of our officers was fortunate enough, very shortly after the events of September 25, to have the opportunity of reconnoitring the village of Loos, with a double purpose in view, namely to verify some landmarks that were doubtful from our observation posts, and to discover if any points existed suitable for permanent occupation as O.P.s. There were two ways open to him of reaching the village from his battery position, of which the first was to proceed to North Maroc and thence take the road to Les Cabarets and from there the track that runs into Loos at its south-western corner, and the second was to walk to Quality Street, thence along the Lens-Béthune road to the old German front-line, and so through their communication trenches into any required part of the village. Time being of importance, he chose the former method, and set out one morning at about 8 a.m. The narrative of his adventures in Loos, as throwing light upon the conditions obtaining in a place that had been heavily shelled by us until our capture of it, and has ever since been equally heavily shelled by the enemy, may be of some interest. Once clear of the houses that screened his movements from the hostile lines, the road seemed very lonely and deserted. So far as the eye could see he was the only living person in the whole of the wide valley, and the sense of being under the observation of many pairs of eyes that were to him invisible produced in him a strangely nervous reaction, as though he were the principal actor in some horrible nightmare. It seemed as though every footstep rang upon the hard road with a note audible for miles, as though he were a gigantic black figure upon an unbroken background of white, as though the watching eyes bent such burning rays upon him that he could feel them pierce him as he moved. I have walked that road myself many times since, more than once when it has been under fire, and know now that it is as safe or safer than many others whose dangers never concern the most nervous, yet an echo of these first sensations of his has invariably struck me when I have done so, and I can understand his feelings. It can only be attributed to the fact that being alone in the middle of the valley one imagines that one is a conspicuous target for any one who will to spend a round upon.