but it was done right by accident. It was certainly touch and go. I shoodden 'ave thought a country town, even in war, could look like Wipers did that night.
"It was gettin' dark on my last trip in, and we barged into all the world gettin' out—and gettin' out quick. And the guns and reinforcements were comin' up behind me. There's no other road in or out, as you know. I forgot to tell you that night comin' on didn't matter much, because the place was alight, and the sky was bursting with shrapnel, and the high explosives were falling in the houses on fire, and spreading the red stuff like fireworks. It was like driving into a volcano. The gun ahead of me went over a child, but only its mother and me saw that, and a house in flames ahead of the gun got a shell inside it, and fell on the crowd that was mixed up with the army traffic.
"When I got to a side turning I went up, and hopped off to see how my little lady was getting on. A shell had got her estaminet. The curtains were flying in little flames through the place where the windows used to be. Inside, the counter was upside down, and she was lying among the glass and bottles on the floor. I couldn't do anything for her. And further up the street my headquarters was a heap of bricks, and the houses on both sides of it alight. No good looking there for any more orders.
"Being left to myself, I began to take notice. While you're on the job you just do it, and don't see much of anything else, except with the corner of yer eye. I've never 'eard such a row, shells bursting, houses falling, and the place was chock full of smoke, and men you couldn't see were shouting and women and children, wherever they were, turning you cold to hear them.
"It was like the end of the world. Time for me to hop it. I backed the old 'bus and turned her, and started off. Shells flashed in front and behind and overhead, and, thinks I, next
