The sun struggled with the mist, triumphed as the morning advanced and by midday was shining again from a clear sky. The men, rested and fed, were in better spirits when the battalion moved off again in the afternoon. They squelched cheerfully forward along the muddy lanes, through country that bore the marks of the night-long barrage and the morning’s battle. The cottages at the roadside were smashed and gaping, sometimes burning. The fields were pitted with shell craters; there were dead cattle and eviscerated horses sprawling everywhere. The roads were littered with the rubbish of war – the blackened, twisted skeletons of burned-out vehicles, spades, packs, tunics, blankets, weapons; food tins and cartons, letters and coloured documents fluttering from a wrecked lorry or an abandoned command post; and British and German dead lying where they had been pushed to the roadsides.

The leading troops ahead were driving on fast, covering ground without troubling to mop up the enemy whom they scattered. Sometimes the most determined of the Germans would come together in little groups which filtered back into the villages behind the British spearheads; so that, more than once during the day, the Fifth Battalion was halted in the narrow lanes listening to the sound of machine guns and grenades as a village was cleared ahead; more than once the leading platoon, coming round a bend, would find a file of British riflemen crouching against the grey stone wall exchanging fire with a sniper in the farmhouse ahead; more than once the battalion heard the sounds of battle in its own rear. But the men were marching, fast and free, into enemy territory, and they were too confident to care.

It was in Mister Paterson’s platoon that the singing began; and Charlie Venable’s was the first voice raised.

Oh, we’ve ’ad a loverly day today, today,

We’ve ’ad a loverly day today.

We don’t know where we are,

We don’t know where we been,

We don’t know whether we’ve ’ad it out

Or whether we’ve ’ad it in –

The song was interminable. Raggedly, the whole platoon joined in, and the song spread along the files plodding at the roadsides.

Oh, we’ve ’ad a loverly day today, today,

We’ve ’ad a loverly day today –

‘There it is,’ said Colonel Pothecary, pointing downhill with his cane, ‘the river. The sappers have got a bridge across it already.’

Major Norman looked about him at the ravaged, smoke-hung countryside. Behind him he could hear the riflemen singing:

Oh, we’ve ’ad a loverly day today –

‘Such a lot of fuss,’ he said sadly, ‘about such a little river.’

The crossing was under mortar fire. There were troops ahead of them blocking the roadway, while small groups rushed at intervals across the bridge.