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In short, a wedge was being driven into the Turkish line, and the point of the wedge Doe's bombing party was to penetrate to the gun-position. Both my task and Doe's were dam-dangerous, said the Colonel, but Doe's was the damnedest. On the effectiveness of my flanking support might depend his life and the success of the raid. Did I see? "Yes, sir."

For the few minutes before my eyes closed I pictured London, the taxis, the gay parties, the mystery of lights. I was roused this morning with the news that I had to go up to the gun-position at once. I stole just sufficient time to pick up a part of my accumulated mail, then got on my horse and set out.

The mud was knee-deep in places, but we floundered on till we came to our old and deserted gun-position where my horses waited for me. From there I rode to the wagon-lines the first time I've sat a horse since I came into action. Far behind me the thunder of winged murder grew more faint. The country became greener; trees even had leaves upon them which fluttered against the grey-blue sky.

Almost at once, thirty or forty rocket-trails converged on the gun-position, and, for a moment, explosions burned like a bonfire. "They had a 75-mm. at the rear of the column," somebody called from the big switchboard. "Lieutenant Kalanang's jeep was hit; Lieutenant Vermaas is cutting in his pickup on the same wavelength." The small screen lighted again.

All this protection was less perhaps to insure safety than to insure security of observation for these eyes of the guns. The officer was as proud of his O.P. as any battalion commander of his trench or a battery commander of his gun-position, which is the same kind of human pride that a man has in the improvements on his new country estate.

A man with a dog trained to hunt guns might spend a week on the gun-position area covering ten miles of the front and not locate half the guns. He might miss "Grandmother" and "Sister" and "Betsy" and "Mike" and even "Mister Archibald," who is the only one who does not altogether try to avoid publicity.

At a cross-road at the bottom of a hill, on the way to a gun-position we once had, stood a Calvary one of those wayside altars, so frequently met in France, with pollarded trees surrounding it and an image of Christ in His agony. Pious peasants on their journey to market or as they worked in the fields, had been accustomed to raise their eyes to it and cross themselves.