They are part of that large body of native labour, Chinese,
Kaffir, Basuto, which is now helping our own men everywhere to push on
and push up, as the new labour forces behind them release more and more
of the fighting men for that dogged pursuit which is going on
_there_--in that blue distance to our right!--where the German line
swings stubbornly back, south-east, from the Vimy Ridge.
The motor stops. This is a Headquarters, and a staff officer comes out
to greet us--a boy in looks, but a D.S.O. all the same! His small car
precedes us as a guide, and we keep up with him as best we may. These
are mining villages we are passing through, and on the horizon are some
of those pyramidal slag-heaps--the Fosses--which have seen some of the
fiercest fighting of the war. But we leave the villages behind, and are
soon climbing into a wooden upland. Suddenly, a halt. A notice-board
forbids the use of a stretch of road before us "from sun-rise to
sunset." Evidently it is under German observation. We try to find
another, parallel. But here, too, the same notice confronts us.
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