or whence, the chance we coveted for a lift to the battle came to us before the night was many hours old. But before the design assumed shape we were to meet as blithe a young Britisher as

achine-gun wound through the palm of his right hand and his cap on the back of his head. His wound had been tied up at a casualty-dressing sta

rom fatigue and lack of sleep. So far as I might judge, though, he did not have a nerve in his body. Gesturing with his swathed hand he told us not what he himself had done-somehow he managed in his self-effacing way to steer away from the personal

perior officer he met. Thereupon he was put in charge of a mixed detachment of two hundred men-gathered up anyhow and anywhere-and with his motley outfit had been told off to hold a strip of woods somewhere south of Chauny. Under him, he said, were stragglers cut off from half a dozen battered line regi

of that bally old bog. Everywhere along the Front-where we were and everywhere else, too, from what I can hear-they have outnumbered us four or fi

one hand out of commission and bleeding all over the shop-would I now? I'm sorry to have to leave the chaps-they were a sporting lot; but since I h

his chest when he got this

dy to rise and hunt the wine cellar if anything of a violently unpleasant nature occurred over our heads. During the hours before daylight there was a spirited spell of banging and crashing somewhere in the town, and not so far away either, if one might judge by the volume of the tum