the way in which the French troops used the motor-buses. The warmth of the engine having reached my feet I fell asleep and nodded and lurched beside him on the seat blissfully unconscious for I don't know how many hours and miles. Once on the journey we halted for a quarter of an hour in a small village. The driver got off the bus and disappeared. Presently he came back and beckoned to me to come with him. I followed him into a cottage where he and several other drivers had had prepared against their arrival hot coffee and rolls of bread and butter. It was extremely kind of the man to have let me in for this feast, which was quite a private affair, and I have seldom enjoyed a cup of coffee more. On we went again and off I went to sleep once more. At last, as day broke, we came to the village where we were to halt, climbed off the buses, and sat down by the roadside watching them roll away the way we had come to get more troops. As we sat by the roadside we soon saw we were nearing more lively parts, for streams of refugees poured by all the time, flying in front of the advancing Germans who were pouring down in strength after the fall of Antwerp. We sat watching the refugees in silence. So this, then, was the reason for our leaving the Aisne and our long secretive seven days move. VII. NEARING THE FIRING-LINE "We shall have a scrap to-day," said the Staff Captain. "What makes you think so--heard anything?" I asked. "No, but it is a Sunday, and a fresh batch of officers has arrived," he answered. Up till then the worst fights in which the regiment had been engaged had always been on a Sunday or just after fresh officers had arrived with reinforcements. The regiment was, at the moment when the Staff Captain spoke to me, leading the brigade in column of route along a road which we knew ran in the direction of Germany. More than that we knew nothing. We had been on the move for the last few days. Where to or for what purpose we had no idea. All we knew was that in the middle of one night we had been roused from our billets where we were resting, and marched off in a northerly direction. We had marched by night and rested by day in different villages. Never once was any definite information given us as to what was on foot. Now, at last, if the Staff Captain's words were true, the move was coming to an end, and we were going into action. Well, if it had to be it had to be, and I think every man was ready to do what was required of him. The officers and draft who had joined us fresh from England were eager for their chance, but the others who had already had a good measure of fighting, and some of whom had been at Mons and on the Marne and Aisne, had not been sorry for the respite which the past fortnight had given. It had been a rest to be away from the sound of gun and rifle fire and go to sleep knowing the enemy was nowhere near, and that one had anyhow the whole of the next day to live.