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Updated: May 25, 2025
I asked. "Yes, sir; I saw him read it." "Is the battery in action?" "Yes, sir; they were firing when I came away." Good! I knew then that Major Bartlett, on his own initiative, was acting on the instructions contained in the brigade-major's note, and that the other batteries would not be delayed in getting into action if I sent the note direct to the colonel.
My marked map with registered targets for the various batteries was by the bedside, and I was able, without getting up, to carry out the brigade-major's instructions. One battery was slow in answering, and as time began to press I complained with some force, when the captain his battery commander was away on a course at last got on the telephone. Poor Dawson. He was very apologetic.
There was so little fuss that numbers of quiet self-contained men seemed to be standing about doing nothing. Occasional high-velocity shells whizzed over our heads. Major Veasey suddenly emerged from the brigade-major's quarters, looking at his map. "Some of the Tanks and two companies of the s lost their way at the start," he told me, "but things have been pulled straight now.
The Brigade signalling officer hailed me from a dug-out that flew the blue and white of the signalling company. Outside the brigade-major's hut I found Captain Drysdale of D Battery, and two other gunner officers. "We are kicking our heels, waiting for news like newspaper correspondents during a Cabinet crisis," said Drysdale with a bored smile.
The brigade-major's first telephone talk at 10.35 A.M. left no doubt that we were pushing home all the advantages gained the day before. "I want one good burst on Trench," he said. "After that cease firing this side of the canal until I tell you to go on."
"Halt," roared Colonel Dearman. "Oh, don't halt 'em," begged General Murger, "it's the most entertainin' show I have ever seen." The smart and dapper Brigade-Major's mouth was open. Major Pinto and Captain-and-Acting-Adjutant Petropaulovski forgot to cling to their horses with hand and heel and so endangered their lives.
The brigade-major's wife was awaiting him in Paris, and I dined with them at the Ritz and took them to lunch next day at Henry's, where the frogs' legs were delicious and the chicken a recompense for that night-mare of a train journey. Viel's was another restaurant which retained a proper touch of the Paris before the war perfect cooking, courtly waiting, and prices not too high. I have pleasant recollections also of Fouquet's in the Champs Elysées, and of an almost divine meal at the Tour d'Argent, on the other side of the river, where Frederic of the Ibsen whiskers used once to reign: the delicacy of the soufflée of turbot! the succulent tenderness of the caneton
3.30 A.M.: The telephone bell above my head was tinkling. It was the brigade-major's voice that spoke. "Will you put your batteries on some extra bursts of fire between 3.45 and 4.10 at places where the enemy, if they are going to attack, are likely to be forming up? Right! that gives you a quarter of an hour to arrange with the batteries. Good-night!"
He was riding hard, but pulled up when he saw me and handed me a note, saying, "Major Bartlett sent me with this to Brigade Headquarters, sir." I recognised the brigade-major's handwriting on an ordinary Army message form.
More prisoners kept coming in; the brigade-major's telephone rang furiously; a heavily-moustached infantry signaller, with a bar to his Military Medal, just back from the eastern side of Combles, was telling his pals how an officer and himself had stalked a Hun sniper. "He was in a hole behind some trees," he said, "and we were walkin' along, when he hit old Alf in the foot "
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