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Then he got his pipe going, and we strode through desolated Nurlu and made across rolling prairie land, broken by earthworks and shell-holes. A couple of heavy hows. were dropping shells on the grassy ridge that rose on our left wasted shots, because no batteries were anywhere near.
Only one vehicle was allowed on the bridge at a time, and a quarter to eleven came before the six mules scrambled the G.S. waggon over. The real difficulty, however, was to decide upon the track to take the other side of the canal. Maps were useless; these were tracks unknown to the topographers. Not one of them followed the general direction in which I believed Nurlu to be.
"You and Wilde had better look for a headquarters somewhere near the cross-roads at Nurlu," the major told me. "The adjutant and myself will find where the batteries are and join you later." There was a twenty minutes' delay because in the dark the G.S. waggon had missed us and vanished round the corner of the wood.
Four mules had been harnessed to it; the battery waggon line was its destination. "Gee-ho! they went off in a hurry from here," remarked Major Veasey, looking at a light engine and three trucks loaded with ammunition and corrugated iron that the enemy had failed to get away on the narrow-gauge line running past Saulcourt. "What we ought to do is to have a railway ride back. The line goes to Nurlu.
The two majors were sitting in a dug-out no bigger than a trench-slit. "What do you think of my quarters?" smiled Major Bartlett. "Sorry I can't ask you to have a drink. Our mess cart hasn't arrived yet." "We've found B and C, so far," interposed Major Veasey, puffing at his pipe, "and I must find the th Infantry Brigade before I finish to-night.... This road takes you direct to Nurlu, you know."
Then, farther away than the whirring in the skies had led us to expect, came the ear-stabbing crack of the bombs. One! two! three! four! five! six! in as quick succession as rifle-shots. "Damn 'em," said Wilde apprehensively. "I hope they don't get any of our horses." We were quite near Nurlu now, and, leaving the waggons in the shelter of the sunken road, Wilde and I again forged ahead.
We struck off in a more northerly direction on our way back to Nurlu, searching for the forward section of B Battery that had been told off to work in conjunction with a certain Infantry battalion.
"As we didn't take a train ride, should I push you back in that, major?" I inquired with due seriousness. Major Veasey smiled, and we started on the last mile and a half. There were prospects, we learned when we got back to Nurlu and read the reports received by the adjutant, of another move forward for the batteries.
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