The officers and men in the
Second Army did actually come to acknowledge the value of the staff-
work behind them, and felt a confidence in its devotion to their
interests which was rare on the western front.
At the end of one of his expositions Sir John Harington would rise and
gather up his maps and papers, and say:
"Well, there you are, gentlemen. You know as much as I do about the
plans for to-morrow's battle. At the end of the day you will be able
to see the result of all our work and tell me things I do not know."
Those conferences took place in the Second Army headquarters on Cassel
Hill, in a big building which was a casino before the war, with a far-
reaching view across Flanders, so that one could see in the distance
the whole sweep of the Ypres salient, and southward the country below
Notre Dame de Lorette, with Merville and Hazebrouck in the foreground.
Often we assembled in a glass house, furnished with trestle tables on
which maps were spread, and, thinking back to these scenes, I remember
now, as I write, the noise of rain beating on that glass roof, and the
clammy touch of fog on the window-panes stealing through the cracks
and creeping into the room.
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