Four fifteen p. m.! A gray August afternoon. Peter, confirmed in his Adjutancy, cigar in mouth, stood on the steps of the office-hut. Behind him, gutted to the last paper, lay the Orderly Room. In front, the gun-park showed a serried mass of vehicles—the spidery Headquarters telephone-waggon, wires gleaming red on their drums, black and white poles poking out behind; fat mess-floats, loaded and over-loaded; A. S. C. waggons, piled high with fodder and biscuit-boxes, tarpaulin-topped; low limbered ammunition-waggons, mackintoshes strapped to their seats, heavy with fodder-bales, new saws in their leather cases, yellow against dark-green paint; guns, covers shrouding breech and muzzle, canvas water-buckets and grease-boxes dangling from hooked-in limbers....

Peter heard the hoot of a horn from the roadway past the Mess; a car streaked up to the Orderly Room. Out of it, dashed an excited Staff Officer from Divisional Headquarters.

“Good afternoon, sir.” Peter saluted.

“Afternoon. Afternoon. Your Colonel in?” said Colonel Starcross, a heavy man, white with rage, shaking with excitement, perspiration beading lined forehead under gold-rimmed cap-peak.

“No, sir. He’s at home.”

“At home. At home. Good God, on an afternoon like this. Why hasn’t your first half battery started? Good God, why hasn’t it started yet? ...”

Peter looked calmly at his wrist-watch. “First half of ‘Don’ Battery hooks-in at 4:30, sir. Head of column passes barrack-gates at 4:50 p. m.”

“Christ in Heaven! You’ll never be in time. The 3rd Brigade’s not entrained yet. Half the traffic of the South of England’s disorganized. Colonel Brasenose ought to be relieved of his command—relieved of his command, I tell you.”

“This isn’t Colonel Brasenose’s Brigade, sir,” said Peter stiffly.

Colonel Starcross stamped on the gravel: “Don’t argue with me, young man. Don’t argue with me. Go and turn your men out. Turn ’em out, damn it.”

“It’s exactly four-thirty, sir,” announced Peter imperturbably. Even as he spoke, they heard Bromley’s whistle, saw him striding, fully equipped, across the gun-park. Came now, from their tin stables, two by two, drivers between, the harnessed teams. Came, at the double, the dismounted men, filled haversacks flopping at their sides.... Five minutes of crisp commands, backing horses, bobbing heads, bending bodies.

“Ready, Sergeant Major?” Bromley’s voice rang clear across the turmoil. “Ready, sir.”

“Stand to your horses.” The ex-Cavalryman swung to his saddle.

“Prepare to mount.” Boots grope for stirrups, hands clutch saddle-peaks and limber rails.

“Mount!” Bodies rise and turn; saddles creak; hooves protest; chains jingle. Bodies drop to their places; fidget for a second; sit stiffly to attention. Bromley, seeing a red-gold cap on the Orderly Room stairs, shouts “Sit at ease”; trots over; swings up hand and elbow in the Gunners’ salute.

“Right Section, Don Battery, Fourth Southdown Brigade. May we march off, sir?”

Colonel Starcross acknowledges the salute, says: “Yes. Yes. Do—for God’s sake.”

“Right half Battery. Advance in column of route from the right. Walk—March!”

Pat of whip: zip of trace tightening: creak of wheel. Slowly, the six-horse teams, the two guns and their loaded waggons, file by. Last of all, swinging hand once more to the salute, rides Bromley....

Peter looked at his watch. “Four forty-eight p. m. sir.”

Starcross looked at Peter: “What’s your name, young man?”

“Jameson, sir. Peter Jameson.”

“Well, you may tell your Colonel, with my compliments, that his Adjutant might be a damn sight worse. Sorry I blinded at you. Been up four nights running.”

He hopped back to the car; streaked off down the road. “Lucky thing it wasn’t Lodden’s crowd” thought Peter.

And day wore on to night. For it took eleven trains to move the seven-hundred and thirty-one officers and men, the five hundred and thirty-nine horses, the sixteen guns and hundred odd waggons of the old-time Artillery Brigade with its Ammunition Column.