Next day the storm had gone, sweeping the skies clear. "We'll talk to the Triumph this morning all right" said Captain Christian rising from the table. My own hopes for the day centred in a couple of bottles of claret which somebody had suggested would ceptable at British Headquarters. If I could get myself entrusted with them I should approach as near to the firing line as I could at this late hour possibly hope to get—British headquarters had been moved right up to the front. The matter was arranged and by nine o'clock I had started. As bad luck would have it, I ran presently right into the attaches being conducted, in strict accordance with Tokio's regulations along safe routes. That delayed progress for a time until the screen of a village enabled me to cut across country unseen. The German aeroplane, apparently, had "spotted" the exact position of General Barnardiston and his staff who, on the previous day had been severely shelled, ten twelve-inchers falling within twenty yards of che The British Position, Here and there, from a second series of defiles branch culsde-sacs sloped upwards between clay cliffs into which low shelters had been built with roofs of tarpaulin, earth and twigs resting on walls of rough stakes. In these were various detachments of the British reserve Outside one sat three or four officers, one of whom, Lieutenant Petre, had had, just near the spot, a very narrow shave the day before and on the night of November 5, in a tight corner I shall tell about presently, had the back of hie coat ripped Fight across by shrapnel without, suffering anything more than a bruise. I chatted with them for a bit over cigarettes and then moved on to a third big nullah, about 200 yards long by sixty wide. On one side were three Japanese howitzers blazing over the gully at Bismarck Hill, on the other ran a line of bivouacs such as have just been described, and in the middle stood groups of officers and what looked like a hopeless j Indian troops. I had arrived just when they were being moved off to another point, and what might have been said to me but for the bland smile my burden enabled me to wear I tremble to think.
From here s scossion of trenches joining defiles and gullies led Hina shore distance of the bac
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.