points the big pressure had come.  They had told me in Paris that the British were as far south as the Oise, so the bombardment we had heard must be directed to our address.  With Passchendaele and Cambrai in my mind, and some notion of the difficulties we had always had in getting drafts, I was puzzled to think where we could have found the troops to man the new front.  We must be unholily thin on that long line.  And against that awesome bombardment!  And the masses and the new tactics that Ivery had bragged of!

When we ran into the dingy cavern which is Amiens station I seemed to note a new excitement.  I felt it in the air rather than deduced it from any special incident, except that the platform was very crowded with civilians, most of them with an extra amount of baggage.  I wondered if the place had been bombed the night before.

‘We won’t say goodbye yet,’ I told the others.  ’The train doesn’t leave for half an hour.  I’m off to try and get news.’

Accompanied by Archie, I hunted out an R.T.O. of my acquaintance.  To my questions he responded cheerfully.

’Oh, we’re doing famously, sir.  I heard this afternoon from a man in Operations that G.H.Q. was perfectly satisfied.  We’ve killed a lot of Huns and only lost a few kilometres of ground . . .  You’re going to your division?  Well, it’s up Peronne way, or was last night.  Cheyne and Dunthorpe came back from leave and tried to steal a car to get up to it . . .  Oh, I’m having the deuce of a time.  These blighted civilians have got the wind up, and a lot are trying to clear out.  The idiots say the Huns will be in Amiens in a week.  What’s the phrase? “Pourvu que les civils tiennent.” ‘Fraid I must push on, Sir.’

I sent Archie back with these scraps of news and was about to make a rush for the house of one of the Press officers, who would, I thought, be in the way of knowing things, when at the station entrance I ran across Laidlaw.  He had been B.G.G.S. in the corps to which my old brigade belonged, and was now on the staff of some army.  He was striding towards a car when I grabbed his arm, and he turned on me a very sick face.

‘Good Lord, Hannay!  Where did you spring from?  The news, you say?’ He sank his voice, and drew me into a quiet corner.  ’The news is hellish.’

‘They told me we were holding,’ I observed.

’Holding be damned!  The Boche is clean through on a broad front.  He broke us today at Maissemy and Essigny.  Yes, the battle-zone.  He’s flinging in division after division like the blows of a hammer.  What else could you expect?’ And he clutched my arm fiercely.  ’How in God’s name could eleven divisions hold a front of forty miles?  And against four to one in numbers?  It isn’t war, it’s naked lunacy.’

I knew the worst now, and it didn’t shock me, for I had known it was coming.  Laidlaw’s nerves were pretty bad, for his face was pale and his eyes bright like a man with a fever.