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+Project Gutenberg's Adventures of a Despatch Rider, by W. H. L. Watson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Adventures of a Despatch Rider
+
+Author: W. H. L. Watson
+
+Release Date: October 14, 2005 [EBook #16868]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF A DESPATCH RIDER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Emmy and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Route taken by Fifth Division_]
+
+
+
+Adventures of a Despatch Rider
+
+Adventures of
+A Despatch Rider
+
+BY
+
+CAPTAIN W.H.L. WATSON
+
+_WITH MAPS_
+
+
+William Blackwood and Sons
+
+Edinburgh and London
+
+1915
+
+      _TO_
+_THE PERFECT MOTHER,_
+    _MY OWN._
+
+
+
+
+A LETTER
+
+BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+     _To_ 2nd Lieut. R.B. WHYTE,
+         1st Black Watch,
+           B.E.F.
+
+MY DEAR ROBERT,--
+
+Do you remember how in the old days we used to talk about my first book?
+Of course it was to be an Oxford novel full of clever little
+character-sketches--witty but not unkind: of subtle and pleasurable
+hints at our own adventures, for no one had enjoyed Balliol and the city
+of Oxford so hugely: of catch-words that repeated would bring back the
+thrills and the laughter--_Psych. Anal._ and _Steady, Steady!_ of names
+crammed with delectable memories--the Paviers', Cloda's Lane, and the
+notorious Square and famous Wynd: of acid phrases, beautifully put, that
+would show up once and for all those dear abuses and shams that go to
+make Oxford. It was to surpass all Oxford Novels and bring us all
+eternal fame.
+
+You remember, too, the room? It was stuffy and dingy and the pictures
+were of doubtful taste, but there were things to drink and smoke. The
+imperturbable Ikla would be sitting in his chair pulling at one of his
+impossibly luxurious pipes. You would be snorting in another--and I
+would be holding forth ... but I am starting an Oxford novelette already
+and there is no need. For two slightly senior contemporaries of ours
+have already achieved fame. The hydrangeas have blossomed. "The Home"
+has been destroyed by a Balliol tongue. The flower-girl has died her
+death. The Balliol novels have been written--and my first book is this.
+
+We have not even had time to talk it over properly. I saw you on my
+week's leave in December, but then I had not thought of making a book.
+Finally, after three months in the trenches you came home in August. I
+was in Ireland and you in Scotland, so we met at Warrington just after
+midnight and proceeded to staggering adventures. Shall we ever forget
+that six hours' talk, the mad ride and madder breakfast with old Peter
+M'Ginn, the solitary hotel at Manchester and the rare dash to London?
+But I didn't tell you much about my book.
+
+It is made up principally of letters to my mother and to you. My mother
+showed these letters to Mr Townsend Warner, my old tutor at Harrow, and
+he, who was always my godfather in letters, passed them on until they
+have appeared in the pages of 'Maga.' I have filled in the gaps these
+letters leave with narrative, worked the whole into some sort of
+connected account, and added maps and an index.
+
+This book is not a history, a military treatise, an essay, or a scrap of
+autobiography. It has no more accuracy or literary merit than letters
+usually possess. So I hope you will not judge it too harshly. My only
+object is to try and show as truthfully as I can the part played in this
+monstrous war by a despatch rider during the months from August 1914 to
+February 1915. If that object is gained I am content.
+
+Because it is composed of letters, this book has many faults.
+
+Firstly, I have written a great deal about myself. That is inevitable in
+letters. My mother wanted to hear about me and not about those whom she
+had never met. So do not think my adventures are unique. I assure you
+that if any of the other despatch riders were to publish their letters
+you would find mine by comparison mild indeed. If George now could be
+persuaded ...!
+
+Secondly, I have dwelt at length upon little personal matters. It may
+not interest you to know when I had a pork-chop--though, as you now
+realise, on active service a pork-chop is extremely important--but it
+interested my mother. She liked to know whether I was having good and
+sufficient food, and warm things on my chest and feet, because, after
+all, there was a time when I wanted nothing else.
+
+Thirdly, all letters are censored. This book contains nothing but the
+truth, but not the whole truth. When I described things that were
+actually happening round me, I had to be exceedingly careful--and when,
+as in the first two or three chapters, my letters were written several
+weeks after the events, something was sure to crop up in the meantime
+that unconsciously but definitely altered the memory of experiences....
+
+We have known together two of the people I have mentioned in this
+book--Alec and Gibson. They have both advanced so far that we have lost
+touch with them. I had thought that it would be a great joy to publish a
+first book, but this book is ugly with sorrow. I shall never be able to
+write "Alec and I" again--and he was the sweetest and kindest of my
+friends, a friend of all the world. Never did he meet a man or woman
+that did not love him. The Germans have killed Alec. Perhaps among the
+multitudinous Germans killed there are one or two German Alecs. Yet I am
+still meeting people who think that war is a fine bracing thing for the
+nation, a sort of national week-end at Brighton.
+
+Then there was Gibson, who proved for all time that nobody made a better
+soldier than the young don--and those whose names do not come into this
+book....
+
+Robert, you and I know what to think of this Brighton theory. We are
+only just down from Oxford, and perhaps things strike us a little more
+passionately than they should.
+
+You have seen the agony of war. You have seen those miserable people
+that wander about behind the line like pariah dogs in the streets. You
+know what is behind "Tommy's invincible gaiety." Let us pray together
+for a time when the publishing of a book like this will be regarded with
+fierce shame.
+
+So long and good luck!
+
+                 Ever yours,
+                                   WILLIAM.
+
+     PIRBRIGHT HUTS,
+           1/10/15.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day after I had written this letter the news came to me that Robert
+Whyte had been killed. The letter must stand--I have not the heart to
+write another.
+
+                                            W.H.L.W.
+     PIRBRIGHT HUTS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAP.                             PAGE
+
+   I. ENLISTING                      1
+
+  II. THE JOURNEY TO THE FRONT      12
+
+ III. THE BATTLE OF MONS            26
+
+  IV. THE BATTLE OF LE CATEAU       40
+
+   V. THE GREAT RETREAT             51
+
+  VI. OVER THE MARNE TO THE AISNE   76
+
+ VII. THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE      105
+
+VIII. THE MOVE TO THE NORTH        140
+
+  IX. ROUND LA BASSÉE              167
+
+   X. THE BEGINNING OF WINTER      197
+
+  XI. ST JANS CAPPEL               230
+
+ XII. BEHIND THE LINES             253
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF MAPS.
+
+
+                                           PAGE
+
+ROUTE TAKEN BY FIFTH DIVISION      _At beginning_
+
+ROUND MONS                                    25
+
+THE MARNE (LAGNY TO CHÂTEAU-THIERRY)          87
+
+THE AISNE (SOISSONS TO VAILLY)               104
+
+ROUND LA BASSÉE                              166
+
+YPRES TO LA BASSÉE                           197
+
+LINE OF RETREAT AND ADVANCE              _At end_
+
+
+
+
+Adventures of A Despatch Rider.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ENLISTING
+
+
+At 6.45 P.M. on Saturday, July 25, 1914, Alec and I determined to take
+part in the Austro-Servian War. I remember the exact minute, because we
+were standing on the "down" platform of Earl's Court Station, waiting
+for the 6.55 through train to South Harrow, and Alec had just remarked
+that we had ten minutes to wait. We had travelled up to London,
+intending to work in the British Museum for our "vivas" at Oxford, but
+in the morning it had been so hot that we had strolled round Bloomsbury,
+smoking our pipes. By lunch-time we had gained such an appetite that we
+did not feel like work in the afternoon. We went to see Elsie Janis.
+
+The evening papers were full of grave prognostications. War between
+Servia and Austria seemed inevitable. Earl's Court Station inspired us
+with the spirit of adventure. We determined to take part, and debated
+whether we should go out as war correspondents or as orderlies in a
+Servian hospital. At home we could talk of nothing else during dinner.
+Ikla, that wisest of all Egyptians, mildly encouraged us, while the
+family smiled.
+
+On Sunday we learned that war had been declared. Ways and means were
+discussed, but our great tennis tournament on Monday, and a dance in the
+evening, left us with a mere background of warlike endeavour. It was
+vaguely determined that when my "viva" was over we should go and see
+people of authority in London....
+
+On the last day of July a few of us met together in Gibson's rooms,
+those neat, white rooms in Balliol that overlook St Giles. Naymier, the
+Pole, was certain that Armageddon was coming. He proved it conclusively
+in the Quad with the aid of large maps and a dissertation on potatoes.
+He also showed us the probable course of the war. We lived in strained
+excitement. Things were too big to grasp. It was just the other day
+that 'The Blue Book,' most respectable of Oxford magazines, had
+published an article showing that a war between Great Britain and
+Germany was almost unthinkable. It had been written by an undergraduate
+who had actually been at a German university. Had the multitudinous
+Anglo-German societies at Oxford worked in vain? The world came crashing
+round our ears. Naymier was urgent for an Oxford or a Balliol Legion--I
+do not remember which--but we could not take him seriously. Two of us
+decided that we were physical cowards, and would not under any
+circumstances enlist. The flower of Oxford was too valuable to be used
+as cannon-fodder.
+
+The days passed like weeks. Our minds were hot and confused. It seemed
+that England must come in. On the afternoon of the fourth of August I
+travelled up to London. At a certain club in St James's there was little
+hope. I walked down Pall Mall. In Trafalgar Square a vast, serious crowd
+was anxiously waiting for news. In Whitehall Belgians were doing their
+best to rouse the mob. Beflagged cars full of wildly gesticulating
+Belgians were driving rapidly up and down. Belgians were haranguing
+little groups of men. Everybody remained quiet but perturbed.
+
+War was a certainty. I did not wish to be a spectator of the scenes
+that would accompany its declaration, so I went home. All the night in
+my dreams I saw the quiet, perturbed crowds.
+
+War was declared. All those of us who were at Balliol together
+telephoned to one another so that we might enlist together. Physical
+coward or no physical coward--it obviously had to be done. Teddy and
+Alec were going into the London Scottish. Early in the morning I started
+for London to join them, but on the way up I read the paragraph in which
+the War Office appealed for motor-cyclists. So I went straight to
+Scotland Yard. There I was taken up to a large room full of benches
+crammed with all sorts and conditions of men. The old fellow on my right
+was a sign-writer. On my left was a racing motor-cyclist. We waited for
+hours. Frightened-looking men were sworn in and one phenomenally grave
+small boy. Later I should have said that a really fine stamp of man was
+enlisting. Then they seemed to me a shabby crew.
+
+At last we were sent downstairs, and told to strip and array ourselves
+in moderately dirty blue dressing-gowns. Away from the formality of the
+other room we sang little songs, and made the worst jokes in the
+world--being continually interrupted by an irritable sergeant, whom we
+called "dearie." One or two men were feverishly arguing whether certain
+physical deficiencies would be passed. Nobody said a word of his reason
+for enlisting except the sign-writer, whose wages had been low.
+
+The racing motor-cyclist and I were passed one after another, and,
+receiving warrants, we travelled down to Fulham. Our names, addresses,
+and qualifications were written down. To my overwhelming joy I was
+marked as "very suitable." I went to Great Portland Street, arranged to
+buy a motor-cycle, and returned home. That evening I received a telegram
+from Oxford advising me to go down to Chatham.
+
+I started off soon after breakfast, and suffered three punctures. The
+mending of them put despatch-riding in an unhealthy light. At Rochester
+I picked up Wallace and Marshall of my college, and together we went to
+the appointed place. There we found twenty or thirty enlisted or
+unenlisted. I had come only to make inquiries, but I was carried away.
+After a series of waits I was medically examined and passed. At 5.45
+P.M. I kissed the Book, and in two minutes I became a corporal in the
+Royal Engineers. During the ceremony my chief sensation was one of
+thoroughgoing panic.
+
+In the morning four of us, who were linguists, were packed off to the
+War Office. We spent the journey in picturing all the ways we might be
+killed, until, by the time we reached Victoria, there was not a single
+one of us who would not have given anything to un-enlist. The War Office
+rejected us on the plea that they had as many Intelligence Officers as
+they wanted. So we returned glumly.
+
+The next few days we were drilled, lectured, and given our kit. We began
+to know each other, and make friends. Finally, several of us, who wanted
+to go out together, managed by slight misstatements to be put into one
+batch. We were chosen to join the 5th Division. The Major in command
+told us--to our great relief--that the Fifth would not form part of the
+first Expeditionary Force.
+
+I remember Chatham as a place of heat, intolerable dirt, and a bad sore
+throat. There we made our first acquaintance with the army, which we
+undergraduates had derided as a crowd of slavish wastrels and
+empty-headed slackers. We met with tact and courtesy from the mercenary.
+A sergeant of the Sappers we discovered to be as fine a type of man as
+any in the wide earth. And we marvelled, too, at the smoothness of
+organisation, the lack of confusing hurry....
+
+We were to start early on Monday morning. My mother and sister rushed
+down to Chatham, and my sister has urgently requested me to mention in
+"the book" that she carried, with much labour, a large and heavy pair of
+ski-ing boots. Most of the others had enlisted like myself in a hurry.
+They did not see "their people" until December.
+
+All of us were made to write our names in the visitors' book, for, as
+the waiter said--
+
+"They ain't nobodies now, but in these 'ere times yer never knows what
+they may be."
+
+Then, when we had gone in an ear-breaking splutter of exhausts, he
+turned to comfort my mother--
+
+"Pore young fellers! Pore young fellers! I wonder if any of 'em will
+return."
+
+That damp chilly morning I was very sleepy and rather frightened at the
+new things I was going to do. I imagined war as a desperate continuous
+series of battles, in which I should ride along the trenches
+picturesquely haloed with bursting shell, varied by innumerable
+encounters with Uhlans, or solitary forest rides and immense tiring
+treks over deserted country to distant armies. I wasn't quite sure I
+liked the idea of it all. But the sharp morning air, the interest in
+training a new motor-cycle in the way it should go, the unexpected
+popping-up and grotesque salutes of wee gnome-like Boy Scouts, soon
+made me forget the war. A series of the kind of little breakdowns you
+always have in a collection of new bikes delayed us considerably, and
+only a race over greasy setts through the southern suburbs, over
+Waterloo Bridge and across the Strand, brought us to Euston just as the
+boat-train was timed to start. In the importance of our new uniforms we
+stopped it, of course, and rode joyfully from one end of the platform to
+the other, much to the agitation of the guard, while I posed
+delightfully against a bookstall to be photographed by a patriotic
+governess.
+
+Very grimy we sat down to a marvellous breakfast, and passed the time
+reading magazines and discussing the length of the war. We put it at
+from three to six weeks. At Holyhead we carefully took our bikes aboard,
+and settled down to a cold voyage. We were all a trifle apprehensive at
+our lack of escort, for then, you will remember, it had not yet been
+proved how innocuous the German fleet is in our own seas.[1]
+
+Ireland was a disappointment. Everybody was dirty and unfriendly,
+staring at us with hostile eyes. Add Dublin grease, which beats the
+Belgian, and a crusty garage proprietor who only after persuasion
+supplied us with petrol, and you may be sure we were glad to see the
+last of it. The road to Carlow was bad and bumpy. But the sunset was
+fine, and we liked the little low Irish cottages in the twilight. When
+it was quite dark we stopped at a town with a hill in it. One of our men
+had a brick thrown at him as he rode in, and when we came to the inn we
+didn't get a gracious word, and decided it was more pleasant not to be a
+soldier in Ireland. The daughter of the house was pretty and passably
+clean, but it was very grimly that she had led me through an immense
+gaudy drawing-room disconsolate in dust wrappings, to a little room
+where we could wash. She gave us an exiguous meal at an extortionate
+charge, and refused to put more than two of us up; so, on the advice of
+two gallivanting lancers who had escaped from the Curragh for some
+supper, we called in the aid of the police, and were billeted
+magnificently on the village.
+
+A moderate breakfast at an unearthly hour, a trouble with the starting
+up of our bikes, and we were off again. It was about nine when we turned
+into Carlow Barracks.
+
+The company sighed with relief on seeing us. We completed the
+establishment on mobilisation. Our two "artificers," Cecil and Grimers,
+had already arrived. We were overjoyed to see them. We realised that
+what they did not know about motor-cycles was not worth knowing, and we
+had suspected at Chatham what we found afterwards to be true, that no
+one could have chosen for us pleasanter comrades or more reliable
+workers.
+
+A fine breakfast was soon prepared for us and we begun looking round.
+The position should have been a little difficult--a dozen or so 'Varsity
+men, very fresh from their respective universities, thrown as corporals
+at the head of a company of professional soldiers. We were determined
+that, whatever vices we might have, we should not be accused of "swank."
+The sergeants, after a trifle of preliminary stiffness, treated us with
+fatherly kindness, and did all they could to make us comfortable and
+teach us what we wanted to learn.
+
+Carlow was a fascinating little town. The National Volunteers still
+drilled just behind the barracks. It was not wise to refer to the
+Borderers or to Ulster, but the war had made all the difference in the
+world. We were to represent Carlow in the Great War. Right through the
+winter Carlow never forgot us. They sent us comforts and cigarettes and
+Christmas Puddings. When the 5th Signal Company returns, Carlow will go
+mad.
+
+My first "official" ride was to Dublin. It rained most of the way there
+and all the way back, but a glow of patriotism kept me warm. In Dublin I
+went into a little public-house for some beer and bread and cheese. The
+landlord told me that though he wasn't exactly a lover of soldiers,
+things had changed now. On my return I was given lunch in the Officers'
+Mess, for nobody could consider their men more than the officers of our
+company.
+
+The next day we were inoculated. At the time we would much rather have
+risked typhoid. We did not object to the discomfort, though two of us
+nearly fainted on parade the following morning--it was streamingly
+hot--but our farewell dinner was absolutely spoilt. Bottles of the best
+Moselle Carlow could produce were left untouched. Songs broke down in
+curses. It was tragic.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] This was written before the days of the "Submarine Blockade."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE JOURNEY TO THE FRONT
+
+
+We made a triumphant departure from Carlow, preceded down to the station
+by the band of the N.V. We were told off to prevent anybody entering the
+station, but all the men entered magnificently, saying they were
+volunteers, and the women and children rushed us with the victorious
+cry, "We've downed the p'lice." We steamed out of the station while the
+band played "Come back to Erin" and "God save Ireland," and made an
+interminable journey to Dublin. At some of the villages they cheered, at
+others they looked at us glumly. But the back streets of Dublin were
+patriotic enough, and at the docks, which we reached just after dark, a
+small, tremendously enthusiastic crowd was gathered to see us off.
+
+They sang songs and cheered, and cheered and sang songs. "I can
+generally bear the separation, but I don't like the leave-taking." The
+boat would not go off. The crowd on the boat and the crowd on the wharf
+made patriotic noises until they were hoarse. At midnight our supporters
+had nearly all gone away. We who had seen our motor-cycles carefully
+hoisted on board ate the buns and apples provided by "Friends in Dublin"
+and chatted. A young gunner told me of all his amours, and they were
+very numerous. Still--
+
+     For my uncle _Toby's_ amours running all the way in my head,
+     they had the same effect upon me as if they had been my
+     own--I was in the most perfect state of bounty and  goodwill--
+
+So I set about finding a place for sleep.
+
+The whole of the Divisional Headquarters Staff, with all their horses,
+were on the _Archimedes_, and we were so packed that when I tried to
+find a place to sleep I discovered there was not an inch of space left
+on the deck, so I passed an uncomfortable night on top of some
+excruciatingly hard ropes.
+
+We cast off about one in the morning. The night was horribly cold, and a
+slow dawn was never more welcomed. But day brought a new horror. The sun
+poured down on us, and the smell from the horses packed closely below
+was almost unbearable; while, worst of all, we had to go below to wash
+and to draw our rations.
+
+Then I was first introduced to bully. The first tin tastes delicious and
+fills you rapidly. You never actually grow to dislike it, and many times
+when extra hungry I have longed for an extra tin. But when you have
+lived on bully for three months (we have not been served out with fresh
+meat more than a dozen times altogether),[2] how you long for any little
+luxuries to vary the monotony of your food!
+
+On the morning of the third day we passed a French destroyer with a
+small prize in tow, and rejoiced greatly, and towards evening we dropped
+anchor off Havre. On either side of the narrow entrance to the docks
+there were cheering crowds, and we cheered back, thrilled, occasionally
+breaking into the soldier's anthem, "It's a long, long way to
+Tipperary."[3]
+
+We disembarked at a secluded wharf, and after waiting about for a couple
+of hours or so--we had not then learned to wait--we were marched off to
+a huge dim warehouse, where we were given gallons of the most delicious
+hot coffee, and bought scrumptious little cakes.
+
+It was now quite dark, and, for what seemed whole nights, we sat
+wearily waiting while the horses were taken off the transport. We made
+one vain dash for our quarters, but found only another enormous
+warehouse, strangely lit, full of clattering waggons and restive horses.
+We watched with wonder a battery clank out into the night, and then
+returned sleepily to the wharf-side. Very late we found where we were to
+sleep, a gigantic series of wool warehouses. The warehouses were full of
+wool and the wool was full of fleas. We were very miserable, and a
+little bread and wine we managed to get hold of hardly cheered us at
+all. I feared the fleas, and spread a waterproof sheet on the bare
+stones outside. I thought I should not get a wink of sleep on such a
+Jacobean resting-place, but, as a matter of fact, I slept like a top,
+and woke in the morning without even an ache. But those who had risked
+the wool----!
+
+We breakfasted off the strong, sweet tea that I have grown to like so
+much, and some bread, butter, and chocolate we bought off a smiling old
+woman at the warehouse gates. Later in the morning we were allowed into
+the town. First, a couple of us went into a café to have a drink, and
+when we came out we found our motor-cycles garlanded with flowers by two
+admiring flappers. Everywhere we went we were the gods of a very proper
+worship, though the shopkeepers in their admiration did not forget to
+charge. We spent a long, lazy day in lounging through the town, eating a
+lot of little meals and in visiting the public baths--the last bath I
+was to have, if I had only known it, for a month. A cheery, little,
+bustling town Havre seemed to us, basking in a bright sunshine, and the
+hopes of our early overwhelming victory. We all stalked about,
+prospective conquerors, and talked fluently of the many defects of the
+German army.
+
+Orders came in the afternoon that we were to move that night. I sat up
+until twelve, and gained as my reward some excellent hot tea and a bit
+of rather tough steak. At twelve everybody was woken up and the company
+got ready to move. We motor-cyclists were sent off to the station.
+Foolishly I went by myself. Just outside what I thought was the station
+I ran out of petrol. I walked to the station and waited for the others.
+They did not come. I searched the station, but found nothing except a
+cavalry brigade entraining. I rushed about feverishly. There was no one
+I knew, no one who had heard anything of my company. Then I grew
+horribly frightened that I should be left behind. I pelted back to the
+old warehouses, but found everybody had left two hours ago. I thought
+the company must surely have gone by now, and started in my desperation
+asking everybody I knew if they had seen anything of the company.
+Luckily I came across an entraining officer, who told me that the
+company were entraining at "Point Six-Hangar de Laine,"--three miles
+away. I simply ran there, asking my way of surly, sleepy sentries,
+tripping over ropes, nearly falling into docks.
+
+I found the Signal Company. There was not a sign of our train. So
+Johnson took me on his carrier back to the station I had searched in
+such fear. We found the motor-cycle, Johnson gave me some petrol, and we
+returned to Point Six. It was dawn when the old train at last rumbled
+and squeaked into the siding.
+
+I do not know how long we took to entrain, I was so sleepy. But the sun
+was just rising when the little trumpet shrilled, the long train creaked
+over the points, and we woke for a moment to murmur--By Jove, we're off
+now,--and I whispered thankfully to myself--Thank heaven I found them at
+last.
+
+We were lucky enough to be only six in our compartment, but, as you
+know, in a French IIIme there is very little room, while the seats are
+fiercely hard. And we had not yet been served out with blankets. Still,
+we had to stick it for twenty-four hours. Luckily the train stopped at
+every station of any importance, so, taking the law into our own hands,
+we got out and stretched our legs at every opportunity.
+
+We travelled _viâ_ Rouen and Amiens to Landrecies. The Signal Company
+had a train to itself. Gradually we woke up to find ourselves travelling
+through extraordinarily pretty country and cheering crowds. At each
+level-crossing the curé was there to bless us. If we did not stop the
+people threw in fruit, which we vainly endeavoured to catch. A halt, and
+they were round us, beseeching us for souvenirs, loading us with fruit,
+and making us feel that it was a fine thing to fight in a friendly
+country.
+
+At Rouen we drew up at a siding, and sent porters scurrying for bread
+and butter and beer, while we loaded up from women who came down to the
+train with all sorts of delicious little cakes and sweets. We stopped,
+and then rumbled slowly towards Amiens. At St Roche we first saw
+wounded, and heard, I do not know with what truth, that four aviators
+had been killed, and that our General, Grierson, had died of heart
+failure. At Ham they measured me against a lamp-post, and ceremoniously
+marked the place. The next time I passed through Ham I had no time to
+look for the mark! It began to grow dark, and the trees standing out
+against the sunset reminded me of our two lines of trees at home. We
+went slowly over bridges, and looked fearfully from our windows for
+bursting shells. Soon we fell asleep, and were wakened about midnight by
+shouted orders. We had arrived at Landrecies, near enough the Frontier
+to excite us.
+
+I wonder if you realise at home what the Frontier meant to us at first?
+We conceived it as a thing guarded everywhere by intermittent patrols of
+men staring carefully towards Germany and Belgium in the darkness, a
+thing to be defended at all costs, at all times, to be crossed with
+triumph and recrossed with shame. We did not understand what an
+enormous, incredible thing modern war was--how it cared nothing for
+frontiers, or nations, or people.
+
+Very wearily we unloaded our motor bicycles and walked to the barracks,
+where we put down our kit and literally feel asleep, to be wakened for
+fatigue work.
+
+We rose at dawn, and had some coffee at a little _estaminet_,[4] where a
+middle-aged dame, horribly arch, cleaned my canteen for me, "pour
+l'amour de toi." We managed an excellent breakfast of bacon and eggs
+before establishing the Signal Office at the barracks. A few of us rode
+off to keep touch with the various brigades that were billeted round.
+The rest of us spent the morning across the road at an inn drinking much
+wine-and-water and planning out the war on a forty-year-old map.
+
+In the afternoon I went out with two others to prospect some roads, very
+importantly. We were rather annoyed to lose our way out of the town, and
+were very short with some inquisitive small boys who stood looking over
+our shoulders as we squatted on the grass by the wayside studying our
+maps.
+
+We had some tea at a mad village called Hecq. All the inhabitants were
+old, ugly, smelly, and dirty; and they crowded round us as we devoured a
+magnificent omelette, endeavouring to incite us to do all sorts of
+things to the German women if ever we reached Germany. We returned home
+in the late afternoon to hear rumours of an advance next day.
+
+Three of us wandered into the Square to have a drink. There I first
+tried a new pipe that had been given me. The one pipe I brought with me
+I had dropped out of the train between Amiens and Landrecies. It had
+been quite a little tragedy, as it was a pipe for which I had a great
+affection. It had been my companion in Switzerland and Paris.
+
+Coming back from the Square I came across an excited crowd. It appears
+that an inoffensive, rather buxom-looking woman had been walking round
+the Square when one of her breasts cooed and flew away. We shot three
+spies at Landrecies.
+
+I hung round the Signal Office, nervous and excited, for "a run." The
+night was alive with the tramp of troops and the rumble of guns. The old
+108th passed by--huge good-natured guns, each drawn by eight gigantic
+plough-horses. I wonder if you can understand--the thrilling excitement
+of waiting and listening by night in a town full of troops.
+
+At midnight I took my first despatch. It was a dark, starless night;
+very misty on the road. From the brigade I was sent on to an
+ambulance--an unpleasant ride, because, apart from the mist and the
+darkness, I was stopped every few yards by sentries of the West Kents, a
+regiment which has now about the best reputation of any battalion out
+here. I returned in time to snatch a couple of hours of sleep before we
+started at dawn for Belgium.
+
+When the Division moves we ride either with the column or go in advance
+to the halting-place. That morning we rode with the column, which meant
+riding three-quarters of a mile or so and then waiting for the
+main-guard to come up,--an extraordinarily tiring method of getting
+along.
+
+The day (August 21) was very hot indeed, and the troops who had not yet
+got their marching feet suffered terribly, even though the people by the
+wayside brought out fruit and eggs and drinks. There was murmuring when
+some officers refused to allow their men to accept these gifts. But a
+start had to be made some time, for promiscuous drinks do not increase
+marching efficiency. We, of course, could do pretty well what we liked.
+A little coffee early in the morning, and then anything we cared to ask
+for. Most of us in the evening discovered, unpleasantly enough,
+forgotten pears in unthought-of pockets.
+
+About 1.30 we neared Bavai, and I was sent on to find out about
+billeting arrangements, but by the time they were completed the rest had
+arrived.
+
+For a long time we were hutted in the Square. Spuggy found a "friend,"
+and together we obtained a good wash. The people were vociferously
+enthusiastic. Even the chemist gave us some "salts" free of charge.
+
+My first ride from Bavai began with a failure, as, owing to belt-slip, I
+endeavoured vainly to start for half an hour (or so it seemed) in the
+midst of an interested but sympathetic populace. A smart change saw me
+tearing along the road to meet with a narrow escape from untimely death
+in the form of a car, which I tried to pass on the wrong side. In the
+evening we received our first batch of pay, and dining magnificently at
+a hotel, took tearful leave of Huggie and Spuggy. They had been chosen,
+they said, to make a wild dash through to Liége. We speculated darkly on
+their probable fate. In the morning we learned that we had been hoaxed,
+and used suitable language.
+
+We slept uncomfortably on straw in a back yard, and rose again just
+before dawn. We breakfasted hastily at a café, and were off just as the
+sun had risen.
+
+Our day's march was to Dour, in Belgium, and for us a bad day's march it
+was. My job was to keep touch with the 14th Brigade, which was advancing
+along a parallel road to the west.[5] That meant riding four or five
+miles across rough country roads, endeavouring to time myself so as to
+reach the 14th column just when the S.O. was passing, then back again to
+the Division, riding up and down the column until I found our captain.
+In the course of my riding that day I knocked down "a civvy" in Dour,
+and bent a foot-rest endeavouring to avoid a major, but that was all in
+the day's work.
+
+The Signal Office was first established patriarchally with a table by
+the roadside, and thence I made my last journey that day to the 14th. I
+found them in a village under the most embarrassing attentions. As for
+myself, while I was waiting, a curé photographed me, a woman rushed out
+and washed my face, and children crowded up to me, presenting me with
+chocolate and cigars, fruit and eggs, until my haversack was practically
+bursting.
+
+When I returned I found the S.O. had shifted to the station of Dour. We
+were given the waiting-room, which we made comfortable with straw.
+Opposite the station was a hotel where the Staff lived. It was managed
+by a curiously upright old man in a threadbare frock-coat, bright check
+trousers, and carpet slippers. Nadine, his pretty daughter, was
+tremulously eager to make us comfortable, and the two days we were at
+Dour we hung round the hotel, sandwiching omelettes and drink between
+our despatches.
+
+[Illustration: ROUND MONS]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] This was written in the middle of October.
+
+[3] We became bored with the song, and dropped it soon after for less
+printable songs.
+
+[4] The word used in Flanders for a tavern that does not aspire to the
+dignity of "restaurant" or "hotel."
+
+[5] The Bavai-Andregnies-Elouges road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE BATTLE OF MONS
+
+
+We knew nothing of what was going on. There was a rumour that Namur had
+fallen, and I heard certain officers say we had advanced dangerously
+far. The cavalry was on our left and the Third Division on our right.
+Beyond the Third Division we had heard of the First Corps, but nothing
+of the French. We were left, to the best of our knowledge, a tenuous
+bulwark against the German hosts.
+
+The 14th Brigade had advanced by the Andregnies road to Elouges and the
+Canal. The 13th was our right brigade, and the 15th, at first in
+reserve, extended our line on the second day to Frameries. The Cyclists
+were reconnoitring north of the Canal.
+
+The roads round Dour were of the very worst _pavé_, and, if this were
+not enough, the few maps we had between us were useless. The villages of
+Waasmes, Paturages, and Frameries were in the midst of such a network
+of roads that the map could not possibly be clear. If the country had
+been flat, we might at least have found our way by landmarks. It was
+not. The roads wandered round great slag-heaps, lost themselves in
+little valleys, ran into pits and groups of buildings. Each one tried to
+be exactly like all its fellows. Without a map to get from Elouges to
+Frameries was like asking an American to make his way from Richmond Park
+to Denmark Hill.
+
+About ten o'clock on the morning of August 23rd I was sent out to find
+General Gleichen, who was reported somewhere near Waasmes. I went over
+nightmare roads, uneven cobbles with great pits in them. I found him,
+and was told by him to tell the General that the position was
+unfortunate owing to a weak salient. We had already heard guns, but on
+my way back I heard a distant crash, and looked round to find that a
+shell had burst half a mile away on a slag-heap, between Dour and
+myself. With my heart thumping against my ribs I opened the throttle,
+until I was jumping at 40 m.p.h. from cobble to cobble. Then, realising
+that I was in far greater danger of breaking my neck than of being shot,
+I pulled myself together and slowed down to proceed sedately home.
+
+The second time I went out to General Gleichen I found him a little
+farther back from his former position. This time he was on the railway.
+While I was waiting for a reply we had an excellent view of German guns
+endeavouring to bring down one of our aeroplanes. So little did we know
+of aeroplanes then, that the General was persuaded by his brigade-major
+to step back into shelter from the falling bits, and we all stared
+anxiously skywards, expecting every moment that our devoted aviator
+would be hit.
+
+That evening Huggie and I rode back to Bavai and beyond in search of an
+errant ammunition column. Eventually we found it and brought news of it
+back to H.Q. I shall never forget the captain reading my despatch by the
+light of my lamp, the waggons guarded by Dorsets with fixed bayonets
+appearing to disappear shadowy in the darkness. We showed the captain a
+short-cut that avoided Bavai, then left him. His horses were tired, but
+he was forced to push them on another ten miles to Dour. We got back at
+10, and found Nadine weeping. We questioned her, but she would not tell
+us why.
+
+There was a great battle very early the next morning, a running-about
+and set, anxious faces. We were all sent off in rapid succession. I was
+up early and managed to get a wash at the station-master's house, his
+wife providing me with coffee, which, much to my discomfiture, she
+liberally dosed with rum. At 6.30 Johnson started on a message to the
+15th Brigade. We never saw him again. At 9.15 three despatch riders who
+had gone to the 15th, George, Johnson, and Grimers, had not returned. I
+was sent. Two miles out I met George with Grimers' despatches. Neither
+of them had been able to find the 15th. I took the despatches and sent
+George back to report. I went down a road, which I calculated ought to
+bring me somewhere on the left of the 15th, who were supposed to be
+somewhere between Paturages and Frameries. There were two villages on
+hills, one on each side. I struck into the north end of the village on
+my left; there was no road to the one on my right.[6] I came across a
+lot of disheartened stragglers retreating up the hill. I went a little
+farther and saw our own firing line a quarter of a mile ahead. There was
+a bit of shrapnel flying about, but not much. I struck back up the hill
+and came upon a crowd of fugitive infantry men, all belonging to the
+13th Brigade. At last I found General Cuthbert, the Brigadier of the
+13th, sitting calmly on his horse watching the men pass. I asked him
+where the 15th was. He did not know, but told me significantly that our
+rallying-point was Athis.
+
+I rode a little farther, and came upon his signal officer. He stopped me
+and gave me a verbal message to the General, telling me that the 15th
+appeared to be cut off. As I had a verbal message to take back there was
+no need for me to go farther with my despatches, which, as it appeared
+later, was just as well. I sprinted back to Dour, picking my way through
+a straggling column of men sullenly retreating. At the station I found
+everybody packing up. The General received my message without a word,
+except one of thanks.
+
+     The right flank of the 13th has been badly turned.
+
+      Most of our officers have been killed.
+
+      Some companies of the K.O.S.B. are endeavouring to cover
+     our retreat.
+
+We viciously smashed all the telegraph instruments in the office and cut
+all the wires. It took me some time to pack up my kit and tie it on my
+carrier. When I had finished, everybody had gone. I could hear their
+horses clattering up the street. Across the way Nadine stood weeping. A
+few women with glazed, resigned eyes, stood listlessly round her.
+Behind me, I heard the first shell crash dully into the far end of the
+town. It seemed to me I could not just go off. So I went across to
+Nadine and muttered "Nous reviendrons, Mademoiselle." But she would not
+look at me, so I jumped on my bicycle, and with a last glance round at
+the wrecked, deserted station, I rode off, shouting to encourage more
+myself than the others, "Ça va bien."
+
+I caught up the General, and passed him to ride on ahead of the Signal
+Company. Never before had I so wished my engine to turn more slowly. It
+seemed a shame that we motor-cyclists should head the retreat of our
+little column. I could not understand how the men could laugh and joke.
+It was blasphemous. They ought to be cursing with angry faces,--at the
+least, to be grave and sorrowful.
+
+I was told that Divisional Headquarters would be established at
+Villers-Pol, a little country village about ten miles west of Bavai and
+eight miles south-east of Valenciennes. I rode to St Waast, a few miles
+out of Bavai, and, finding there a cavalry colonel (of the 2nd Life
+Guards, I think), gave him all the news. I hurried on to Jenlain,
+thinking I might be of some use to the troops on our right flank, but
+Jenlain was peaceful and empty. So I cut across low rolling downs to
+Villers-Pol. There was nobody there when I arrived. The sun was shining
+very brightly. Old women were sleeping at the doors; children were
+playing lazily on the road. Soon one or two motor-cyclists dribbled in,
+and about an hour later a section of the Signal Company arrived after a
+risky dash along country lanes. They outspanned, and we, as always, made
+for the inn.
+
+There was a mother in the big room. She was a handsome little woman of
+about twenty-four. Her husband was at the war. She asked me why we had
+come to Villers-Pol. I said we were retreating a little--pour attaquer
+le mieux--un mouvement stratégique. She wept bitterly and loudly, "Ah,
+my baby, what will they do to us? They will kill you, and they will
+ill-treat me so that never again shall I be able to look my husband in
+the eyes--his brave eyes; but now perhaps they are closed in death!"
+There was an older, harsh-featured woman who rated the mother for her
+silliness, and, while we ate our omelette, the room was filled with the
+clamour of them until a dog outside began to howl. Then the mother went
+and sat down in a chair by the fire and stopped crying, but every now
+and then moaned and clasped her baby strongly to her breast, murmuring,
+"My poor baby, my poor baby, what shall we do?"
+
+We lounged about the place until a cavalry brigade came through. The
+General commandeered me to find his transport. This I did, and on the
+way back waited for the brigade to pass. Then for the first time I saw
+that many riderless horses were being led, that some of the horses and
+many of the men were wounded, and that one regiment of lancers was
+pathetically small. It was the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, that had charged the
+enemy's guns, to find them protected by barbed wire.
+
+Sick at heart I rode back into Villers-Pol, and found the Signal Company
+hastily harnessing up. Headquarters had been compelled to go farther
+back still--to St Waast, and there was nobody, so far as we knew,
+between us and the Germans. The order caught George with his gear down.
+We made a marvellously rapid repair, then went off at the trot. A mile
+out, and I was sent back to pick up our quartermaster and three others
+who were supposed to have been left behind. It was now quite dark. In
+the village I could not find our men, but discovered a field ambulance
+that did not know what to do. Their horses were dead tired, but I
+advised them strongly to get on. They took my advice, and I heard at
+Serches that they left Villers-Pol as the Germans[7] entered it. They
+were pursued, but somehow got away in the darkness.
+
+I went on, and at some cross-roads in a black forest came across a
+regiment of hussars. I told them where their B.H.Q. was, and their
+Colonel muttered resignedly,
+
+"It's a long way, but we shall never get our wounded horses there
+to-morrow." I put two more companies right, then came across a little
+body of men who were vainly trying to get a horse attached to a S.A.A.
+limber out of the ditch. It was a pitch-black night, and they were
+bravely endeavouring to do it without catching a glimpse of the horse. I
+gave them the benefit of my lamp until they had got the brute out. Two
+more bodies of stragglers I directed, and then pushed on rapidly to St
+Waast, where I found all the other motor-cyclists safe except Johnson.
+Two had come on carts, having been compelled to abandon their
+motor-cycles.
+
+George had been attached to the 14th. He had gone with them to the
+canal, and had been left there with the Cornwalls when the 14th had
+retired to its second position. At last nobody remained with him except
+a section. They were together in a hut, and outside he could hear the
+bullets singing. He noticed some queer-looking explosives in a corner,
+and asked what they were for. He was told they were to blow up the
+bridge over the canal, so decided it was time for him to quit, and did
+so with some rapidity under a considerable rifle fire. Then he was sent
+up to the Manchesters, who were holding a ready-made trench across the
+main road. As he rode up he tells me men shouted at him, "Don't go that
+way, it's dangerous," until he grew quite frightened; but he managed to
+get to the trench all right, slipped in, and was shown how to crawl
+along until he reached the colonel.
+
+N'Soon and Sadders were with the 13th. On the Sunday night they had to
+march to a new position more towards their right. The Signal Section
+went astray and remained silently on a byroad while their officer
+reconnoitred. On the main road between them and their lines were some
+lights rapidly moving--Germans in armoured motor-cars. They successfully
+rejoined, but in the morning there was something of a collision, and
+Sadders' bicycle was finished. He got hold of a push-bike alongside the
+waggons for some distance, finishing up on a limber.
+
+Spuggy was sent up to the trenches in the morning. He was under heavy
+shell fire when his engine seized up. His brigade was retreating, and he
+was in the rear of it, so, leaving his bicycle, he took to his heels,
+and with the Germans in sight ran till he caught up a waggon. He
+clambered on, and so came into St Waast.
+
+I had not been in many minutes when I was sent off to our Army H.Q. at
+Bavai. It was a miserable ride. I was very tired, the road was full of
+transport, and my lamp would not give more than a feeble glimmer.
+
+I got to bed at 1 A.M. About 3.30 (on August 24) I was called and
+detailed to remain with the rear-guard. First I was sent off to find the
+exact position of various bodies posted on roads to stem the German
+advance. At one spot I just missed a shell-trap. A few minutes after I
+had left, some of the Manchesters, together with a body of the D.
+Cyclists who were stationed three miles or so out of St Waast, were
+attacked by a body of Jaegers, who appeared on a hill opposite.
+Foolishly they disclosed their position by opening rifle fire. In a few
+minutes the Jaegers went, and to our utter discomfiture a couple of
+field-guns appeared and fired point-blank at 750 yards. Luckily the
+range was not very exact, and only a few were wounded--those who retired
+directly backwards instead of transversely out of the shells' direction.
+
+The H.Q. of the rear-guard left St Waast about 5.30. It was cold and
+chilly. What happened I do not quite know. All I remember was that at a
+given order a battery would gallop off the road into action against an
+enemy we could not see. So to Bavai, where I was sent off with an
+important despatch for D.H.Q. I had to ride past the column, and
+scarcely had I gone half a mile when my back tyre burst. There was no
+time to repair it, so on I bumped, slipping all over the road. At
+D.H.Q., which of course was on the road, I borrowed some one else's
+bicycle and rode back by another road. On the way I came across Huggie
+filling up from an abandoned motor-lorry. I did likewise, and then tore
+into Bavai. A shell or two was bursting over the town, and I was nearly
+slaughtered by some infantrymen, who thought they were firing at an
+aeroplane. Dodging their bullets, I left the town, and eventually caught
+up the H.Q. of the rear-guard.
+
+It was now about 10.30. Until five the troops tramped on, in a scorching
+sun, on roads covered with clouds of dust. And most pitiful of all,
+between the rear-guard and the main body shuffled the wounded; for we
+had been forced to evacuate our hospital at Bavai. Our men were mad at
+retreating. The Germans had advanced on them in the closest order. Each
+fellow firmly believed he had killed fifty, and was perfectly certain
+we could have held our line to the crack of doom. They trudged and
+trudged. The women, who had cheerily given us everything a few days
+before, now with anxious faces timorously offered us water and fruit.
+
+Great ox-waggons full of refugees, all in their best clothes, came in
+from side-roads. None of them were allowed on the roads we were
+retreating along, so I suppose they were pushed across the German front
+until they fell into the Germans' hands.
+
+For us it was column-riding the whole day--half a mile or so, and then a
+halt,--heart-breaking work.
+
+I was riding along more or less by myself in a gap that had been left in
+the column. A curé stopped me. He was a very tall and very thin young
+man with a hasty, frightened manner. Behind him was a flock of
+panic-stricken, chattering old women. He asked me if there was any
+danger. Not that he was afraid, he said, but just to satisfy his people.
+I answered that none of them need trouble to move. I was too ashamed to
+say we were retreating, and I had an eye on the congestion of the roads.
+I have sometimes wondered what that tall, thin curé, with the sallow
+face and the frightened eyes, said about me when, not twelve hours
+later, the German advance-guard triumphantly defiled before him.
+
+Late in the afternoon we passed through Le Cateau, a bright little town,
+and came to the village of Reumont, where we were billeted in a large
+barn.
+
+We were all very confident that evening. We heard that we were holding a
+finely entrenched position, and the General made a speech--I did not
+hear it--in which he told us that there had been a great Russian
+success, and that in the battle of the morrow a victory for us would
+smash the Germans once and for all. But our captain was more
+pessimistic. He thought we should suffer a great disaster. Doubting, we
+snuggled down in the straw, and went soundly to sleep.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] I had no map with me. All the maps were in use. Looking afterwards
+at the map which I obtained later in the day, I am unable to trace my
+route with any accuracy. It is certain that the Germans temporarily
+thrust in a wedge between the 13th and 15th Brigades.
+
+[7] A small patrol of cavalry, I should imagine, if the tale I heard at
+Serches be true.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE BATTLE OF LE CATEAU
+
+
+The principal thing about Le Cateau is that the soldiers pronounce it to
+rhyme with Waterloo--Leacatoo--and all firmly believe that if the French
+cavalry had come up to help us, as the Prussians came up at Waterloo,
+there would have been no Germans to fight against us now.
+
+It was a cold misty morning when we awoke, but later the day was fine
+enough. We got up, had a cheery and exiguous breakfast to distant,
+intermittent firing, then did a little work on our bicycles. I spent an
+hour or so watching through glasses the dim movement of dull bodies of
+troops and shrapnel bursting vaguely on the horizon. Then we were all
+summoned to H.Q., which were stationed about a mile out from Reumont on
+the Le Cateau road. In front of us the road dipped sharply and rose
+again over the brow of a hill about two miles away. On this brow,
+stretching right and left of the road, there was a line of poplars. On
+the slope of the hill nearer to us there were two or three field
+batteries in action. To the right of us a brigade of artillery was
+limbered up ready to go anywhere. In the left, at the bottom of the dip
+the 108th was in action, partially covered by some sparse bushes. A few
+ambulance waggons and some miscellaneous first-line transport were drawn
+up along the side of the road at the bottom of the dip. To the N.W. we
+could see for about four miles over low, rolling fields. We could see
+nothing to the right, as our view was blocked by a cottage and some
+trees and hedges. On the roof of the cottage a wooden platform had been
+made. On it stood the General and his Chief of Staff and our Captain.
+Four telephone operators worked for their lives in pits breast-high, two
+on each side of the road. The Signal Clerk sat at a table behind the
+cottage, while round him, or near him, were the motor-cyclists and
+cyclists.
+
+About the battle itself you know as much as I. We had wires out to all
+the brigades, and along them the news would come and orders would go.
+The ---- are holding their position satisfactorily. Our flank is being
+turned. Should be very grateful for another battalion. We are under very
+heavy shell fire. Right through the battle I did not take a single
+message. Huggie took a despatch to the 13th, and returned under very
+heavy shrapnel fire, and for this was very properly mentioned in
+despatches.
+
+How the battle fluctuated I cannot now remember. But I can still see
+those poplars almost hidden in the smoke of shrapnel. I can still hear
+the festive crash of the Heavies as they fired slowly, scientifically,
+and well. From 9 to 12.30 we remained there kicking our heels,
+feverishly calm, cracking the absurdest jokes. Then the word went round
+that on our left things were going very badly. Two battalions were
+hurried across, and then, of course, the attack developed even more
+fiercely on our right.
+
+Wounded began to come through--none groaning, but just men with their
+eyes clenched and great crimson bandages.
+
+An order was sent to the transport to clear back off the road. There was
+a momentary panic. The waggons came through at the gallop and with them
+some frightened foot-sloggers, hanging on and running for dear life.
+Wounded men from the firing line told us that the shrapnel was
+unbearable in the trenches.
+
+A man came galloping up wildly from the Heavies. They had run out of
+fuses. Already we had sent urgent messages to the ammunition lorries,
+but the road was blocked and they could not get up to us. So Grimers was
+sent off with a haversack--mine--to fetch fuses and hurry up the
+lorries. How he got there and back in the time that he did, with the
+traffic that there was, I cannot even now understand.
+
+It was now about two o'clock, and every moment the news that we heard
+grew worse and worse, while the wounded poured past us in a continuous
+stream. I gave my water-bottle to one man who was moaning for water. A
+horse came galloping along. Across the saddle-bow was a man with a
+bloody scrap of trouser instead of a leg, while the rider, who had been
+badly wounded in the arm, was swaying from side to side.
+
+A quarter of an hour before the brigade on our right front had gone into
+action on the crest of the hill. Now they streamed back at the trot, all
+telling the tale--how, before they could even unlimber, shells had come
+crashing into them. The column was a lingering tragedy. There were teams
+with only a limber and without a gun. And you must see it to know what a
+twistedly pathetic thing a gun team and limber without a gun is. There
+were bits of teams and teams with only a couple of drivers. The faces of
+the men were awful. I smiled at one or two, but they shook their heads
+and turned away. One sergeant as he passed was muttering to himself, as
+if he were repeating something over and over again so as to learn it by
+rote--"My gun, my gun, my gun!"
+
+At this moment an order came from some one for the motor-cyclists to
+retire to the farm where we had slept the night. The others went on with
+the crowd, but I could not start my engine. After trying for five
+minutes it seemed to me absurd to retreat, so I went back and found that
+apparently nobody had given the order. The other motor-cyclists returned
+one by one as soon as they could get clear, but most of them were
+carried on right past the farm.
+
+A few minutes later there was a great screaming crash
+overhead--shrapnel. I ran to my bicycle and stood by waiting for orders.
+
+The General suggested mildly that we might change our headquarters.
+There was a second crash. We all retired about 200 yards back up the
+road. There I went to the captain in the middle of the traffic and asked
+him what I should do. He told us to get out of it as we could not do
+anything more--"You have all done magnificently"--then he gave me some
+messages for our subaltern. I shouted, "So long, sir," and left him, not
+knowing whether I should ever see him again. I heard afterwards that he
+went back when all the operators had fled and tried to get into
+communication with our Army H.Q.
+
+Just as I had started up my engine another shell burst about 100 yards
+to the left, and a moment later a big waggon drawn by two maddened
+horses came dashing down into the main street. They could not turn, so
+went straight into the wall of a house opposite. There was a dull crash
+and a squirming heap piled up at the edge of the road.
+
+I pushed through the traffic a little and came upon a captain and a
+subaltern making their way desperately back. I do not know who they
+were, but I heard a scrap of what they said--
+
+"We must get back for it," said the captain.
+
+"We shall never return," replied the subaltern gravely.
+
+"It doesn't matter," said the captain.
+
+"It doesn't matter," echoed the subaltern.
+
+But I do not think the gun could have been saved.
+
+About six of us collected in a little bunch at the side of the road. On
+our left we saw a line of infantry running. The road itself was
+impassable. So we determined to strike off to the right. I led the way,
+and though we had not the remotest conception whether we should meet
+British or German, we eventually found our way to 2nd Corps H.Q.
+
+I have only a dim remembrance of what happened there. I went into the
+signal-office and reported that, so far as I knew, the 5th Division was
+in flight along the Reumont-Saint-Quentin road.
+
+The sergeant in charge of the 2nd Corps Motor-cyclists offered us some
+hard-boiled eggs and put me in charge of our lot. Then off we went, and
+hitting the main road just ahead of our muddled column, halted at the
+desolate little village of Estrées.
+
+It now began to rain.
+
+Soon the column came pouring past, so miserably and so slowly,--lorries,
+transport, guns, limbers, small batches of infantrymen, crowds of
+stragglers. All were cursing the French, for right through the battle we
+had expected the French to come up on our right wing. There had been a
+whole corps of cavalry a few miles away, but in reply to our urgent
+request for help their general had reported that his horses were too
+tired. How we cursed them and cursed them.
+
+After a weary hour's wait our subaltern came up, and, at my request,
+sent me to look for the captain. I found him about two miles this side
+of Reumont, endeavouring vainly to make some sort of ordered procession
+out of the almost comically patchwork medley. Later I heard that the
+last four hundred yards of the column had been shelled to destruction as
+it was leaving Reumont, and a tale is told--probably without truth--of
+an officer shooting the driver of the leading motor-lorry in a hopeless
+endeavour to get some ammunition into the firing line.
+
+I scooted back and told the others that our captain was still alive, and
+a little later we pushed off into the flood. It was now getting dark,
+and the rain, which had held off for a little, was pouring down.
+
+Finally, we halted at a tiny cottage, and the Signal Company outspanned.
+
+We tried to make ourselves comfortable in the wet by hiding under damp
+straw and putting on all available bits of clothing. But soon we were
+all soaked to the skin, and it was so dark that horses wandered
+perilously near. One hungry mare started eating the straw that was
+covering my chest. That was enough. Desperately we got up to look round
+for some shelter, and George, our champion "scrounger," discovered a
+chicken-house. It is true there were nineteen fowls in it. They died a
+silent and, I hope, a painless death.
+
+The order came round that the motor-cyclists were to spend the night at
+the cottage--the roads were utterly and hopelessly impassable--while
+the rest of the company was to go on. So we presented the company with a
+few fowls and investigated the cottage.
+
+It was a startling place. In one bedroom was a lunatic hag with some
+food by her side. We left her severely alone. Poor soul, we could not
+move her! In the kitchen we discovered coffee, sugar, salt, and onions.
+With the aid of our old Post Sergeant we plucked some of the chickens
+and put on a great stew. I made a huge basin full of coffee.
+
+The others, dead tired, went to sleep in a wee loft. I could not sleep.
+I was always seeing those wounded men passing, passing, and in my
+ear--like the maddening refrain of a musical comedy ditty--there was
+always murmuring--"We shall never return. It doesn't matter." Outside
+was the clink and clatter of the column, the pitiful curses of tired
+men, the groaning roar of the motor-lorries as they toiled up the slope.
+
+Then the Staff began to wander in one by one--on foot, exhausted and
+bedraggled. They loved the coffee, but only played with the chicken--I
+admit it was tough. They thought all was lost and the General killed.
+One murmured to another: "Magersfontein, Dour, and this--you've had some
+successful battles." And one went to sleep, but kept starting up, and
+giving a sort of strangled shout--"All gone! All gone!" When each had
+rested awhile he would ask gently for a little more coffee, rub his
+eyes, and disappear into the column to tramp through the night to Saint
+Quentin. It was the purest melodrama.
+
+And I, too tired to sleep, too excited to think, sat sipping thick
+coffee the whole night through, while the things that were happening
+soaked into me like petrol into a rag. About two hours before dawn I
+pulled myself together and climbed into the loft for forty minutes'
+broken slumber.
+
+An hour before dawn we wearily dressed. The others devoured cold stew,
+and immediately there was the faintest glimmering of light we went
+outside. The column was still passing,--such haggard, broken men! The
+others started off, but for some little time I could not get my engine
+to fire. Then I got going. Quarter of a mile back I came upon a little
+detachment of the Worcesters marching in perfect order, with a cheery
+subaltern at their head. He shouted a greeting in passing. It was
+Urwick, a friend of mine at Oxford.
+
+I cut across country, running into some of our cavalry on the way. It
+was just light enough for me to see properly when my engine jibbed. I
+cleaned a choked petrol pipe, lit a briar--never have I tasted anything
+so good--and pressed on.
+
+Very bitter I felt, and when nearing Saint Quentin, some French soldiers
+got in my way, I cursed them in French, then in German, and finally in
+good round English oaths for cowards, and I know not what. They looked
+very startled and recoiled into the ditch. I must have looked
+alarming--a gaunt, dirty, unshaven figure towering above my motor-cycle,
+without hat, bespattered with mud, and eyes bright and weary for want of
+sleep. How I hated the French! I hated them because, as I then thought,
+they had deserted us at Mons and again at Le Cateau; I hated them
+because they had the privilege of seeing the British Army in confused
+retreat; I hated them because their roads were very nearly as bad as the
+roads of the Belgians. So, wet, miserable, and angry, I came into Saint
+Quentin just as the sun was beginning to shine a little.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE GREAT RETREAT
+
+
+On the morning of the 27th we draggled into Saint Quentin. I found the
+others gorged with coffee and cakes provided by a kindly Staff-Officer.
+I imitated them and looked around. Troops of all arms were passing
+through very wearily. The people stood about, listless and sullen.
+Everywhere proclamations were posted beseeching the inhabitants to bring
+in all weapons they might possess. We found the Signal Company, and rode
+ahead of it out of the town to some fields above a village called
+Castres. There we unharnessed and took refuge from the gathering storm
+under a half-demolished haystack. The Germans didn't agree to our
+remaining for more than fifty minutes. Orders came for us to harness up
+and move on. I was left behind with the H.Q.S., which had collected
+itself, and was sent a few minutes later to 2nd Corps H.Q. at Ham, a
+ride of about fifteen miles.
+
+On the way I stopped at an inn and discovered there three or four of our
+motor-cyclists, who had cut across country, and an officer. The
+officer[8] told us how he had been sent on to construct trenches at Le
+Cateau. It seems that although he enlisted civilian help, he had neither
+the time nor the men to construct more than very makeshift affairs,
+which were afterwards but slightly improved by the men who occupied
+them.
+
+Five minutes and I was on the road again. It was an easy run, something
+of a joy-ride until, nearing Ham, I ran into a train of motor-lorries,
+which of all the parasites that infest the road are the most difficult
+to pass. Luckily for me they were travelling in the opposite direction
+to mine, so I waited until they passed and then rode into Ham and
+delivered my message.
+
+The streets of Ham were almost blocked by a confused column retreating
+through it. Officers stationed at every corner and bend were doing their
+best to reduce it to some sort of order, but with little success.
+
+Returning I was forced into a byroad by the column, lost my way, took
+the wrong road out of the town, but managed in about a couple of hours
+to pick up the Signal Co., which by this time had reached the Chateau at
+Oleezy.
+
+There was little rest for us that night. Twice I had to run into Ham.
+The road was bad and full of miscellaneous transport. The night was
+dark, and a thick mist clung to the road. Returning the second time, I
+was so weary that I jogged on about a couple of miles beyond my turning
+before I woke up sufficiently to realise where I was.
+
+The next morning (the 28th) we were off before dawn. So tired were we
+that I remember we simply swore at each other for nothing at all. We
+waited, shivering in the morning cold, until the column was well on its
+way.
+
+At Oleezy the Division began to find itself. Look at the map and think
+for a moment what the men had done. On the 21st they had advanced from
+Landrecies to Bavai, a fair day's march on a blazing day. On the 22nd
+they had marched from Bavai to the Canal. From the morning of the 23rd
+to midday or later on the 24th they had fought hard. On the afternoon
+and evening of the 24th they had retired to the Bavai-Saint-Waast line.
+Before dawn on the morning of the 25th they had started off again and
+marched in column of route on another blazing day back to a position a
+few miles south of Le Cateau. The battle had begun as the sun rose on
+the 26th, and continued until three o'clock or later in the afternoon.
+They plodded through the darkness and the rain. No proper halt was made
+until midday of the 27th.
+
+The General, who had escaped, and the Staff worked with ferocious
+energy, as we very painfully knew. Battalions bivouacked in the open
+fields round Oleezy collected the stragglers that came in and
+reorganised themselves. The cavalry were between us and Saint Quentin.
+We were in communication with them by despatch rider. Trains full of
+French troops passed westwards over Oleezy bridge. There were, I
+believe, General d'Amade's two reserve divisions. We had walked away
+from the Germans.
+
+We rode after the column. On the way we passed a battalion of men who
+had been on outpost duty with nothing but a biscuit and a half apiece.
+They broke their ranks to snatch at some meat that had been dumped by
+the roadside, and gnawed it furiously as they marched along until the
+blood ran down from their chins on to their jackets.
+
+I shall never forget how our General saw a batch of Gordons and K.O.S.B.
+stragglers trudging listlessly along the road. He halted them. Some
+more came up until there was about a company in all, and with one piper.
+He made them form fours, put the piper at the head of them. "Now, lads,
+follow the piper, and remember Scotland"; and they all started off as
+pleased as Punch with the tired piper playing like a hero.
+
+Oving or the Fat Boy volunteered to take a message to a body of cavalry
+that was covering our rear. He found them, and then, being mapless (maps
+were very scarce in those days), he lost his way. There was no sun, so
+he rode in what he thought was the right direction, until suddenly he
+discovered that he was two kilometres from Saint Quentin. As the Germans
+were officially reported to be five miles south of the town he turned
+back and fled into the darkness. He slept that night at a cottage, and
+picked up the Division in the morning.
+
+I was sent on to fill up with petrol wherever I could find it. I was
+forced to ride on for about four miles to some cross-roads. There I
+found a staff-car that had some petrol to spare. It was now very hot, so
+I had a bit of a sleep on the dusty grass by the side of the road, then
+sat up to watch lazily the 2nd Corps pass.
+
+The troops were quite cheerful and on the whole marching well. There
+were a large number of stragglers, but the majority of them were not
+men who had fallen out, but men who had become separated from their
+battalions at Le Cateau. A good many were badly footsore. These were
+being crowded into lorries and cars.
+
+There was one solitary desolate figure. He was evidently a reservist, a
+feeble little man of about forty, with three days' growth on his chin.
+He was very, very tired, but was struggling along with an unconquerable
+spirit. I gave him a little bit of chocolate I had; but he wouldn't stop
+to eat it. "I can't stop. If I does, I shall never get there." So he
+chewed it, half-choking, as he stumbled along. I went a few paces after
+him. Then Captain Dillon came up, stopped us, and put the poor fellow in
+a staff-car and sent him along a few miles in solitary grandeur, more
+nervous than comfortable.
+
+Eventually the company came along and I joined. Two miles farther we
+came to a biggish town with white houses that simply glared with
+heat.[9] My water-bottle was empty, so I humbly approached a good lady
+who was doling out cider and water at her cottage door. It did taste
+good! A little farther on I gave up my bicycle to Spuggy, who was riding
+in the cable-cart.
+
+We jolted along at about two miles an hour. For some time two spies
+under escort walked beside the limber. Unlike most spies they looked
+their part. One was tall and thin and handsome. The other was short and
+fat and ugly. The fear of death was on their faces, and the jeers of our
+men died in their mouths. They were marched along for two days until a
+Court could be convened. Then they were shot.
+
+Just before Noyon we turned off to the left and halted for half an hour
+at Landrimont, a little village full of big trees. We had omelettes and
+coffee at the inn, then basked in the sun and smoked. Noyon was
+unattractive. The people did not seem to care what happened to anybody.
+Perhaps we thought that, because we were very tired. Outside Noyon I
+dozed, then went off to sleep.
+
+When I awoke it was quite dark, and the column had halted. The order
+came for all except the drivers to dismount and proceed on foot. The
+bridge ahead was considered unsafe, so waggons went across singly.
+
+I walked on into the village, Pontoise. There were no lights, and the
+main street was illuminated only by the lanterns of officers seeking
+their billets. An A.S.C. officer gave me a lift. Our H.Q. were right the
+other end of the town in the Chateau of the wee hamlet called La
+Pommeraye. I found them, stumbled into a loft, and dropped down for a
+sleep.
+
+We were called fairly late.[10] George and I rode into Pontoise and
+"scrounged" for eggs and bread. These we took to a small and smelly
+cottage. The old woman of the cottage boiled our eggs and gave us
+coffee. It was a luxurious breakfast. I was looking forward to a slack
+lazy day in the sun, for we were told that we had for the moment
+outdistanced the gentle Germans. But my turn came round horribly soon,
+and I was sent off to Compiègne with a message for G.H.Q., and orders to
+find our particularly elusive Div. Train. It was a gorgeous ride along a
+magnificent road, through the great forest, and I did the twenty odd
+miles in forty odd minutes.
+
+G.H.Q. was installed in the Palace. Everybody seemed very clean and
+lordly, and for a moment I was ashamed of my dirty, ragged, unshorn
+self. Then I realised that I was "from the Front"--a magic phrase to
+conjure with for those behind the line--and swaggered through long
+corridors.
+
+After delivering my message I went searching for the Div. Train. First,
+I looked round the town for it, then I had wind of it at the station,
+but at the station it had departed an hour or so before. I returned to
+G.H.Q., but there they knew nothing. I tried every road leading out of
+the town. Finally, having no map, and consequently being unable to make
+a really thorough search, I had a drink, and started off back.
+
+When I returned I found everybody was getting ready to move, so I packed
+up. This time the motor-cyclists rode in advance of the column. About
+two miles out I found that the others had dropped behind out of sight. I
+went on into Carlepont, and made myself useful to the Billeting Officer.
+The others arrived later. It seems there had been a rumour of Uhlans on
+the road, and they had come along fearfully.
+
+The troops marched in, singing and cheering. It was unbelievable what
+half a day's rest had done for them. Of course you must remember that we
+all firmly believed, except in our moments of deepest despondency,
+first, that we could have held the Germans at Mons and Le Cateau if the
+French had not "deserted" us, and second, that our retreat was merely a
+"mouvement stratégique."
+
+There was nothing doing at the Signal Office, so we went and had some
+food--cold sausage and coffee. Our hostess was buxom and hilarious.
+There was also a young girl about the place, Hélène. She was of a middle
+size, serious and dark, with a mass of black lustreless hair. She could
+not have been more than nineteen. Her baby was put to bed immediately
+we arrived. We loved them both, because they were the first women we had
+met since Mons who had not wanted to know why we were retreating and had
+not received the same answer--"mouvement stratégique pour attaquer le
+mieux." I had a long talk that night with Hélène as she stood at her
+door. Behind us the dark square was filled with dark sleeping soldiers,
+the noise of snoring and the occasional clatter of moving horses.
+Finally, I left her and went to sleep on the dusty boards of an attic in
+the Chateau.
+
+We were called when it was still dark and very cold (August 30). I was
+vainly trying to warm myself at a feeble camp fire when the order came
+to move off--without breakfast. The dawn was just breaking when we set
+out--to halt a hundred yards or so along. There we shivered for half an
+hour with nothing but a pipe and a scrap of chocolate that had got stuck
+at the bottom of my greatcoat pocket. Finally, the motor-cyclists, to
+their great relief, were told that they might go on ahead. The Grimers
+and I cut across a country to get away from the column. We climbed an
+immense hill in the mist, and proceeding by a devious route eventually
+bustled into Attichy, where we found a large and dirty inn containing
+nothing but some bread and jam. The column was scheduled to go ten
+miles farther, but "the situation being favourable" it was decided to go
+no farther. Headquarters were established by the roadside, and I was
+sent off to a jolly village right up on the hill to halt some sappers,
+and then back along the column to give the various units the names of
+their billets.
+
+We supped off the sizzling bacon and slept on the grass by the side of
+the road. That night George burned his Rudge. It was an accident, but we
+were none too sorry, for it had given much trouble. There were messages
+right through the night. At one in the morning I was sent off to a
+Chateau in the Forest of Compiègne. I had no map, and it was a pure
+accident that I found my way there and back.
+
+The next day (Aug. 31) was a joyous ride. We went up and down hills to a
+calm, lazy little village, Haute Fontaine. There we took a wrong turning
+and found ourselves in a blackberry lane. It was the hottest,
+pleasantest of days, and forgetting all about the more serious
+things--we could not even hear the guns--we filled up with the softest,
+ripest of fruit. Three of us rode together, N'Soon, Grimers, and myself.
+I don't know how we found our way. We just wandered on through sleepy,
+cobbled villages, along the top of ridges with great misty views and by
+quiet streams. Just beyond a village stuck on to the side of a hill, we
+came to a river, and through the willows we saw a little church. It was
+just like the Happy Valley that's over the fields from Burford.
+
+We all sang anything we could remember as we rattled along. The bits of
+columns that we passed did not damp us, for they consisted only of
+transport, and transport can never be tragic--even in a retreat. The
+most it can do is to depress you with a sense of unceasing monotonous
+effort.
+
+About three o'clock we came to a few houses--Béthancourt. There was an
+omelette, coffee, and pears for us at the inn. The people were
+frightened.
+
+     Why are the English retreating? Are they defeated?
+
+      No, it is only a strategical movement.
+
+      Will the dirty Germans pass by here? We had better pack up
+     our traps and fly.
+
+We were silent for a moment, then I am afraid I lied blandly.
+
+     Oh no, this is as far as we go.
+
+But I had reckoned without my host, a lean, wiry old fellow, a bit stiff
+about the knees. First of all he proudly showed me his soldier's
+book--three campaigns in Algeria. A crowd of smelly women pressed round
+us--luckily we had finished our meal--while with the help of a few
+knives and plates he explained exactly what a strategical movement was,
+and demonstrated to the satisfaction of everybody except ourselves that
+the valley we were in was obviously the place "pour reculer le mieux."
+
+We had been told that our H.O. were going to be at a place called
+Béthisy St Martin, so on we went. A couple of miles from Béthisy we came
+upon a billeting party of officers sitting in the shade of a big tree by
+the side of the road. Had we heard that the Germans were at Compiègne,
+ten miles or so over the hill? No, we hadn't. Was it safe to go on into
+Béthisy? None of us had an idea. We stopped and questioned a "civvy"
+push-cyclist. He had just come from Béthisy and had seen no Germans. The
+officers started arguing whether or no they should wait for an escort.
+We got impatient and slipped on. Of course there was nothing in Béthisy
+except a wide-eyed population, a selection of smells, and a vast
+congregation of chickens. The other two basked on some hay in the sun,
+while I went back and pleased myself immensely by reporting to the
+officers who were timorously trotting along that there wasn't a sign of
+a Uhlan.
+
+We rested a bit. One of us suggested having a look round for some Uhlans
+from the top of the nearest hill. It was a terrific climb up a narrow
+track, but our bicycles brought us up magnificently. From the top we
+could see right away to the forest of Compiègne, but a judicious bit of
+scouting produced nothing.
+
+Coming down we heard from a passing car that H.Q. were to be at
+Crêpy-en-Valois, a biggish old place about four miles away to the south
+the other side of Béthancourt. We arrived there just as the sun was
+going to set. It was a confusing place, crammed full of transport, but I
+found my way to our potential H.Q. with the aid of a joyous little
+flapper on my carrier.
+
+Then I remembered I had left my revolver behind on the hill above
+Béthisy. Just before I started I heard that there were bags of Uhlans
+coming along over the hills and through the woods. But there was nothing
+for it but to go back, and back I went. It was a bestial climb in the
+dusk. On my way back I saw some strange-looking figures in the grounds
+of a chateau. So I opened my throttle and thundered past.
+
+Later I found that the figures belonged to the rest of the
+motor-cyclists. The chateau ought to have been our H.Q., and arriving
+there they had been entertained to a sit-down tea and a bath.
+
+We had a rotten night--nothing between me and a cold, hard tiled floor
+except a waterproof sheet, but no messages.
+
+We woke very early (September 1st) to the noise of guns. The Germans
+were attacking vigorously, having brought up several brigades of Jaegers
+by motor-bus. The 15th was on our left, the 13th was holding the hill
+above Béthancourt, and the 14th was scrapping away on the right. The
+guns were ours, as the Germans didn't appear to have any with them. I
+did a couple of messages out to the 15th. The second time I came back
+with the news that their left flank was being turned.
+
+A little later one of our despatch riders rode in hurriedly. He reported
+that, while he was riding along the road to the 15th, he had been shot
+at by Uhlans whom he had seen distinctly. At the moment it was of the
+utmost importance to get a despatch through to the 15th. The Skipper
+offered to take it, but the General refused his offer.
+
+A second despatch rider was carefully studying his map. It seemed to him
+absolutely inconceivable that Uhlans should be at the place where the
+first despatch rider had seen them. They must either have ridden right
+round our left flank and left rear, or else broken through the line. So
+he offered boldly to take the despatch.
+
+He rode by a slightly roundabout road, and reached the 15th in safety.
+On his way back he saw a troop of North Irish Horse. In the meantime the
+Divisional Headquarters had left Crépy in great state, the men with
+rifles in front, and taken refuge on a hill south-east of the town. On
+his return the despatch rider was praised mightily for his work, but to
+this day he believes the Uhlans were North Irish Horse and the bullets
+"overs"[11]--to this day the first despatch rider contradicts him.
+
+The Division got away from Crépy with the greatest success. The 13th
+slaughtered those foolish Huns that tried to charge up the hill in the
+face of rifle, machine-gun, and a considerable shell fire. The Duke of
+Wellington's laid a pretty little ambush and hooked a car containing the
+general and staff of the 1st Cavalry Division. The prisoners were
+remorsefully shot, as it would have been impossible to bring them away
+under the heavy fire.
+
+We jogged on to Nanteuil, all of us very pleased with ourselves,
+particularly the Duke of Wellington's, who were loaded with spoils, and
+a billeting officer who, running slap into some Uhlans, had been fired
+at all the way from 50 yards' range to 600 and hadn't been hit.
+
+I obtained leave to give a straggler a lift of a couple of miles. He was
+embarrassingly grateful. The last few miles was weary work for the men.
+Remember they had marched or fought, or more often both, every day since
+our quiet night at Landrecies. The road, too, was the very roughest
+_pavé_, though I remember well a little forest of bracken and pines we
+went through. Being "a would-be literary bloke," I murmured "Scottish";
+being tired I forgot it from the moment after I saw it until now.
+
+There was no rest at Nanteuil. I took the Artillery Staff Captain round
+the brigades on my carrier, and did not get back until 10. A bit of hot
+stew and a post-card from home cheered me. I managed a couple of hours'
+sleep.
+
+We turned out about 3, the morning of September 2nd. It was quite dark
+and bitterly cold. Very sleepily indeed we rode along an exiguous path
+by the side of the cobbles. The sun had risen, but it was still cold
+when we rattled into that diabolical city of lost souls, Dammartin.
+
+Nobody spoke as we entered. Indeed there were only a few haggard, ugly
+old women, each with a bit of a beard and a large goitre. One came up to
+me and chattered at me. Then suddenly she stopped and rushed away, still
+gibbering. We asked for a restaurant. A stark, silent old man, with a
+goitre, pointed out an _estaminet_. There we found four motionless men,
+who looked up at us with expressionless eyes. Chilled, we withdrew into
+the street. Silent, melancholy soldiers--the H.Q. of some army or
+division--were marching miserably out. We battered at the door of a
+hotel for twenty minutes. We stamped and cursed and swore, but no one
+would open. Only a hideous and filthy crowd stood round, and not one of
+them moved a muscle. Finally, we burst into a bare little inn, and had
+such a desolate breakfast of sour wine, bread, and bully. We finished as
+soon as we could to leave the nightmare place. Even the houses were
+gaunt and ill-favoured.
+
+On our way out we came across a deserted motor-cycle. Some one suggested
+sending it on by train, until some one else remarked that there were no
+trains, and this was fifteen miles from Paris.
+
+We cut across country, rejoined the column, and rode with it to
+Vinantes, passing on the way a lost motor-lorry. The driver was tearing
+his hair in an absolute panic. We told him the Germans were just a few
+miles along the road; but we wished we hadn't when, in hurriedly
+reversing to escape, he sent a couple of us into the ditch.
+
+At Vinantes we "requisitioned" a car, some chickens, and a pair of
+boots. There was a fusty little tavern down the street, full of laughing
+soldiers. In the corner a fat, middle-aged woman sat weeping quietly on
+a sack. The host, sullen and phlegmatic, answered every question with a
+shake of the head and a muttered "N'importe." The money he threw
+contemptuously on the counter. The soldiers thought they were spies. "As
+speaking the langwidge," I asked him what the matter was.
+
+     "They say, sir, that this village will be shelled by the
+     cursed Germans, and the order has gone out to evacuate."
+
+Then, suddenly his face became animated, and he told me volubly how he
+had been born in the village, how he had been married there, how he had
+kept the _estaminet_ for twenty years, how all the leading men of the
+village came of an evening and talked over the things that were
+happening in Paris.
+
+He started shouting, as men will--
+
+     "What does it matter what I sell, what I receive? What does
+     it matter, for have I not to leave all this?"
+
+Then his wife came up and put her hand on his arm--
+
+     "Now, now; give the gentlemen their beer."
+
+I bought some cherry brandy and came away.
+
+I was sent on a couple of messages that afternoon: one to trace a
+telephone wire to a deserted station with nothing in it but a sack of
+excellent potatoes, another to an officer whom I could not find. I
+waited under a tree eating somebody else's pears until I was told he had
+gone mad, and was wandering aimlessly about.
+
+It was a famous night for me. I was sent off to Dammartin, and knew
+something would go wrong. It did. A sentry all but shot me. I nearly
+rode into an unguarded trench across the road, and when I started back
+with my receipt my bicycle would not fire. I found that the mechanic at
+Dammartin had filled my tank with water. It took me two hours, two lurid
+hours, to take that water out. It was three in the morning when I got
+going. I was badly frightened the Division had gone on, because I hadn't
+the remotest conception where it was going to. When I got back H.Q. were
+still at Vinantes. I retired thankfully to my bed under the stars,
+listening dreamily to Grimers, who related how a sentry had fired at
+him, and how one bullet had singed the back of his neck.
+
+We left Vinantes not too early after breakfast,--a comfort, as we had
+all of us been up pretty well the whole night. Grimers was still upset
+at having been shot at by sentries. I had been going hard, and had had
+only a couple of hours' sleep. We rode on in advance of the company. It
+was very hot and dusty, and when we arrived at Crécy with several hours
+to spare, we first had a most excellent omelette and then a shave, a
+hair-cut, and a wash. Crécy was populous and excited. It made us joyous
+to think we had reached a part of the country where the shops were open,
+people pursuing their own business, where there was no dumbly
+reproaching glance for us in our retreat.
+
+We had been told that our H.Q. that night were going to be at the
+chateau of a little village called La Haute Maison. Three of us arrived
+there and found the caretaker just leaving. We obtained the key, and
+when he had gone did a little bit of looting on our own. First we had a
+great meal of lunch-tongue, bread, wine, and stewed pears. Then we
+carefully took half a dozen bottles of champagne and hid them, together
+with some other food-stuffs, in the middle of a big bed of nettles. A
+miscellaneous crowd of cows were wandering round the house lowing
+pitifully.
+
+We were just about to make a heroic effort at milking when the 3rd Div.
+billeting officer arrived and told us that the 5th Div. H.Q. would be
+that night at Bouleurs, farther back. We managed to carry off the
+food-stuffs, but the champagne is probably still in the nettles. And the
+bottles are standing up too.
+
+We found the company encamped in a schoolhouse, our fat signal-sergeant
+doing dominie at the desk. I made himself a comfortable sleeping-place
+with straw, then went out on the road to watch the refugees pass.
+
+I don't know what it was. It may have been the bright and clear evening
+glow, but--you will laugh--the refugees seemed to me absurdly beautiful.
+A dolorous, patriarchal procession of old men with white beards leading
+their asthmatic horses that drew huge country carts piled with clothes,
+furniture, food, and pets. Frightened cows with heavy swinging udders
+were being piloted by lithe middle-aged women. There was one girl
+demurely leading goats. In the full crudity of curve and distinctness of
+line she might have sat for Steinlen,--there was a brownness, too, in
+the atmosphere. Her face was olive and of perfect proportions; her
+eyelashes long and black. She gave me a terrified side-glance, and I
+thought I was looking at the picture of the village flirt in serene
+flight.
+
+I connect that girl with a whisky-and-soda, drunk about midnight out of
+a tin mug under the trees, thanks to the kindness of the Divisional
+Train officers. It did taste fine.
+
+The next day (September 4th) I was attached to the Divisional Cyclists.
+We spent several hours on the top of a hill, looking right across the
+valley for Germans. I was glad of the rest, as very early in the morning
+I had been sent off at full speed to prevent an officer blowing up a
+bridge. Luckily I blundered into one of his men, and scooting across a
+mile of heavy plough, I arrived breathless at the bridge, but just in
+time. The bridge in the moonlight looked like a patient horse waiting to
+be whipped on the raw. The subaltern was very angry. There had been an
+alarm of Uhlans, and his French escort had retired from the bridge to
+safer quarters....
+
+I shared Captain Burnett's lunch, and later went to fetch some men from
+a bridge that we had blown up. It seemed to me at the time that the
+bridge had been blown up very badly. As a matter of fact, German
+infantry crossed it four hours after I had left it.
+
+We had "the wind up" that afternoon. It appears that a patrol of six
+Uhlans had either been cut off or had somehow got across the river at
+Meaux. Anyway, they rode past an unsuspecting sleepy outpost of ours,
+and spread alarm through the division. Either the division was panicky
+or the report had become exaggerated on the way to H.Q. Batteries were
+put into position on the Meaux road, and there was a general liveliness.
+
+I got back from a hard but unexciting day's work with the Cyclists to
+find that the Germans had got across in very fact, though not at Meaux,
+and that we were going to do a further bunk that night. We cursed the
+gentle Germans heartily and well. About 10.30 the three of us who were
+going on started. We found some convoys on the way, delivered messages,
+and then I, who was leading, got badly lost in the big Villeneuve
+forest--I forgot the name of it at the moment.[12] Of course I pretended
+that we were taking the shortest road, and luck, which is always with me
+when I've got to find anything, didn't desert me that night.
+
+At dead of night we echoed into the Chateau at Tournan, roused some
+servants, and made them get us some bread, fruit, and mattresses. The
+bread and fruit we devoured, together with a lunch-tongue, from that
+excellent Chateau at La Haute Maison--the mattresses we took into a
+large airy room and slept on, until we were wakened by the peevish
+tones of the other motor-cyclists who had ridden with the column. One of
+them had fallen asleep on his bicycle and disappeared into a ditch, but
+the other two were so sleepy they did not hear him. We were all weary
+and bad-tempered, while a hot dusty day, and a rapid succession of
+little routine messages, did not greatly cheer us.
+
+At Tournan, appropriately, we turned. We were only a few miles S.-E. of
+Paris. The Germans never got farther than Lagny. There they came into
+touch with our outposts, so the tactful French are going to raise a
+monument to Jeanne d'Arc--a reminder, I suppose, that even we and they
+committed atrocities sometime.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] I do not know who the officer was, and I give the story as I wrote
+it in a letter home--for what it is worth.
+
+[9] It must have been Guiscard.
+
+[10] August 29th.
+
+[11] Stray bullets that, fired too high, miss their mark, and
+occasionally hit men well behind the actual firing line.
+
+[12] Forêt de Crécy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+OVER THE MARNE TO THE AISNE
+
+
+The morning of September 5th was very hot, but the brigades could easily
+be found, and the roads to them were good. There was cheerfulness in the
+air. A rumour went round--it was quite incredible, and we scoffed--that
+instead of further retreating either beyond or into the fortifications
+of Paris, there was a possibility of an advance. The Germans, we were
+told, had at last been outflanked. Joffre's vaunted plan that had
+inspired us through the dolorous startled days of retirement was, it
+appeared, a fact, and not one of those bright fancies that the Staff
+invents for our tactical delectation.
+
+Spuggy returned. He had left us at Bouleurs to find a bicycle in Paris.
+Coming back he had no idea that we had moved. So he rode too far north.
+He escaped luckily. He was riding along about three hundred yards behind
+two motor-cyclists. Suddenly he saw them stop abruptly and put up their
+hands. He fled. A little farther on he came to a village and asked for
+coffee. He heard that Uhlans had been there a few hours before, and was
+taken to see a woman who had been shot through the breast. Then he went
+south through Villeneuve, and following a fortunate instinct, ran into
+our outposts the other side of Tournan.
+
+We all slept grandly on mattresses. It was the first time we had been
+two nights in the same place since Dour.
+
+We awoke early to a gorgeous day. We were actually going to advance. The
+news put us in marvellous good temper. For the first time in my
+recollection we offered each other our bacon, and one at the end of
+breakfast said he had had enough. The Staff was almost giggling, and a
+battalion (the Cheshires, I think) that we saw pass, was absolutely
+shouting with joy. You would have thought we had just gained a famous
+victory.
+
+Half of us went forward with the column. The rest remained for a
+slaughterous hour. First we went to the hen-house, and in ten minutes
+had placed ten dripping victims in the French gendarme captain's car.
+Then George and I went in pursuit of a turkey for the Skipper. It was an
+elusive bird with a perfectly Poultonian swerve, but with a bagful of
+curses, a bleeding hand, and a large stick, I did it to death.
+
+We set out merrily and picked up Spuggy, Cecil, and George in the big
+forest that stretches practically from the Marne to Tournan. They
+thought they had heard a Uhlan, but nothing came of it (he turned out to
+be a deer), so we went on to Villeneuve. There I bought some biscuits
+and George scrounged some butter. A job to the 3rd Division on our right
+and another in pursuit of an errant officer, and then a sweaty and
+exiguous lunch--it was a sweltering noon--seated on a blistering
+pavement. Soon after lunch three of us were sent on to Mortcerf, a
+village on a hill to the north of the forest. We were the first English
+there--the Germans had left it in the morning--and the whole population,
+including one strikingly pretty flapper, turned out to welcome us in
+their best clean clothes,--it may have been Sunday.
+
+We accepted any quantity of gorgeous, luscious fruit, retiring modestly
+to a shady log to eat it, and smoke a delectable pipe. In a quarter of
+an hour Major Hildebrand of the 2nd Corps turned up in his car, and
+later the company.
+
+Pollers had had a little adventure. He was with some of our men when he
+saw a grey figure coming down one of the glades to the road. We knew
+there were many stray Uhlans in the forest who had been left behind by
+our advance. The grey figure was stalked, unconscious of his danger.
+Pollers had a shot with his revolver, luckily without effect, for the
+figure turned out to be our blasphemous farrier, who had gone into the
+forest, clad only in regulation grey shirt and trousers, to find some
+water.
+
+Later in the afternoon I was sent off to find the North Irish Horse. I
+discovered them four miles away in the first flush of victory. They had
+had a bit of a scrap with Uhlans, and were proudly displaying to an
+admiring brigade that was marching past a small but select collection of
+horses, lances, and saddles.
+
+This afternoon George smashed up his bicycle, the steering head giving
+at a corner.
+
+We bivouacked on the drive, but the hardness of our bed didn't matter,
+as we were out all night--all of us, including the two, Grimers and
+Cecil. It was nervous riding in the forest. All the roads looked exactly
+alike, and down every glade we expected a shot from derelict Uhlans.
+That night I thought out plots for at least four stories. It would have
+been three, but I lost my way, and was only put right by striking a
+wandering convoy. I was in search of the Division Train. I looked for
+it at Tournan and at Villeneuve and right through the forest, but
+couldn't find it. I was out from ten to two, and then again from two to
+five, with messages for miscellaneous ammunition columns. I collared an
+hour's sleep and, by mistake, a chauffeur's overcoat, which led to
+recriminations in the morning. But the chauffeur had an unfair
+advantage. I was too tired to reply.
+
+Grimers, who cannot see well at night, was terrified when he had to take
+a despatch through the forest. He rode with a loaded revolver in one
+hand, and was only saved from shooting a wretched transport officer by a
+wild cry, "For God's sake, look what you're doing."
+
+The eldest Cecil reported a distinct smell of dead horses at the obelisk
+in the forest. At least he rather thought they were dead donkeys. The
+smell was a little different--more acrid and unpleasant. We told him
+that there were eight dead Germans piled at the side of the road, and we
+reminded him that it had been a sweltering day.
+
+We were terribly tired in the morning. Spuggy, George, and Orr went off
+to Paris for new bicycles, and we were left short-handed again. Another
+tropical day.
+
+The Skipper rode the spare bike with great dash, the elder Cecil and I
+attendant. We sprinted along a good straight road to the cobbled,
+crowded little town of Faremoutiers. Then we decided to advance to
+Mouroux, our proposed headquarters. It was a haggard village, just off
+the road. We arrived there about twelve: the Germans had departed at
+six, leaving behind them a souvenir in the dead body of a fellow from
+the East Lancs. crumpled in a ditch. He had been shot while eating. It
+was my first corpse. I am afraid I was not overwhelmed with thoughts of
+the fleetingness of life or the horror of death. If I remember my
+feelings aright, they consisted of a pinch of sympathy mixed with a
+trifle of disgust, and a very considerable hunger, which some apples by
+the roadside did something to allay.
+
+I shall never forget Mouroux. It was just a little square of old houses.
+Before the Mairie was placed a collection of bottles from which the
+Sales Boches had very properly drunk. French proclamations were
+scribbled over with coarse, heavy jests. The women were almost
+hysterical with relieved anxiety. The men were still sullen, and, though
+they looked well fed, begged for bread. A German knapsack that I had
+picked up and left in charge of some villagers was torn to shreds in
+fierce hatred when my back was turned.
+
+It was very lonely there in the sun. We had outstripped the
+advance-guard by mistake and were relieved when it came up.
+
+We made prisoner of a German who had overslept himself because he had
+had a bath.
+
+I rushed back with Grimers on my carrier to fetch another bicycle. On my
+return my engine suddenly produced an unearthly metallic noise. It was
+only an aeroplane coming down just over my head.
+
+In the late afternoon we marched into Coulommiers. The people crowded
+into the streets and cheered us. The girls, with tears in their eyes,
+handed us flowers.
+
+Three of us went to the Mairie. The Maire, a courtly little fellow in
+top-hat and frock-coat, welcomed us in charming terms. Two fat old women
+rushed up to us and besought us to allow them to do something for us. We
+set one to make us tea, and the other to bring us hot water and soap.
+
+A small girl of about eight brought me her kitten and wanted to give it
+me. I explained to her that it would not be very comfortable tied with
+pink ribbons to my carrier. She gravely assented, sat on my knee, told
+me I was very dirty, and commanded me to kill heaps and heaps of
+Germans. She didn't like them; they had beards!
+
+You know those fierce middle-aged Frenchwomen of the _bourgeois_ class,
+hard as Scotsmen, close as Jews, and with feelings about as fine as
+those of a motor-bus. She was one of them, and she was the foremost of a
+largish crowd that collected round me. With her was a pretty girl of
+about twenty-two.
+
+The mother began with a rhetorical outburst against all Germans,
+anathematising in particular those who had spent the last fortnight in
+Coulommiers, in which town her uncle had set up his business, which,
+though it had proved successful, as they all knew, &c., &c. The crowd
+murmured that they did all know. Then the old harridan chanted the
+wrongs which the Germans had wrought until, when she had worked the
+crowd and herself up to a heat of furious excitement, she lowered her
+voice, suddenly lowered her tone. In a grating whisper she narrated, in
+more detail than I cared to hear, the full story of how her daughter--to
+whom she pointed--had been shamefully treated by the Germans. The crowd
+growled. The daughter was, I think, more pleased at being the object of
+my sympathy and the centre of the crowd's interest than agonised at the
+remembrance of her misfortune.
+
+Some of the company coming up saved me from the recital of further
+outrages. The hag told them of a house where the Germans had left a
+rifle or two and some of our messages which they had intercepted. The
+girl hesitated a moment, and then followed. I started hastily to go on,
+but the girl, hearing the noise of my engine, ran back to bid me an
+unembarrassed farewell.
+
+I rode through Coulommiers, a jolly rambling old town, to our billet in
+a suburban villa on the Rebais road. The Division was marching past in
+the very best of spirits. We, who were very tired, endeavoured to make
+ourselves comfortable--we were then blanketless--on the abhorrent
+surface of a narrow garden path.
+
+That night a 2nd Corps despatch rider called in half an hour before his
+death. We have heard many explanations of how he died. He crashed into a
+German barricade, and we discovered him the next morning with his eyes
+closed, neatly covered with a sheet, in a quaint little house at the
+entrance to the village of Doué.
+
+At dawn (Sept. 8th) the others went on with the column. I was sent back
+with a despatch for Faremoutiers, and then was detailed to remain for an
+hour with Cecil. Ten minutes after my return the Fat Boy rode in,
+greatly excited. He had gone out along the Aulnoy road with a message,
+and round a corner had run into a patrol of Uhlans. He kept his head,
+turned quickly, and rode off in a shower of bullets. He was
+tremendously indignant, and besought some cavalry who were passing to
+go in pursuit.
+
+We heard the rumble of guns and started in a hurry after the column.
+Sergeant Merchant's bicycle--our spare, a Rudge--burnt out its clutch,
+and we left it in exchange for some pears at a cottage with a delicious
+garden in Champbreton. Doué was a couple of miles farther on.
+
+Colonel Sawyer, D.D.M.S., stopped me anxiously, and asked me to go and
+see if I could recognise the despatch rider's corpse. I meditated over
+it for a few minutes, then ran on to the signal-office by the roadside.
+There I exchanged my old bike for a new one which had been discovered in
+a cottage. Nothing was wrong with my ancient grid except a buckled back
+rim, due to collision with a brick when riding without a lamp. One of
+the company rode it quietly to Serches, then it went on the side-car,
+and was eventually discarded at Beuvry.
+
+I found the Division very much in action. The object of the Germans was,
+by an obstinate rearguard action, to hold first the line of the Petit
+Morin and second the line La Ferté to the hills north of Méry, so that
+their main body might get back across the Marne and continue northward
+their retreat, necessitated by our pressure on their flank. This retreat
+again was to be as slow as possible, to prevent an outflanking of the
+whole.
+
+Our object was obviously to prevent them achieving theirs.
+
+Look at the map and grasp these three things:--
+
+     1. The two rivers--the Petit Morin debouching so as to cover
+     the German left centre.
+
+      2. From La Ferté westwards the rivers run in deep ravines,
+     hemmed in by precipitous thickly-wooded hills.
+
+      3. Only two bridges across the Marne remained--one large
+     one at La Ferté and one small one at Saacy.
+
+When I arrived at Doué the Germans were holding the Forest of Jouarre in
+force. They were in moderate force on the south bank of the Petit Morin,
+and had some guns, but not many, on the north bank.
+
+Here is a tale of how glory may be forced upon the unwilling.
+
+There were troops on the road running south from Jouarre. They might be
+Germans retreating. They might be the 3rd Corps advancing. The Staff
+wanted to know at once, and, although a despatch rider had already been
+sent west to ride up the road from the south, it was thought that
+another despatch rider skirting the east side of the Bois de Jouarre
+might find out more quickly. So the captain called for volunteers.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARNE
+(LAGNY _TO_ CHÂTEAU-THIERRY)]
+
+Now one despatch rider had no stomach for the job. He sat behind a tree
+and tried to look as if he had not heard the captain's appeal. The
+sergeant in charge had faith in him and, looking round, said in a loud
+voice, "Here is Jones!" (it is obviously impolitic for me to give even
+his nickname, if I wish to tell the truth). The despatch rider jumped
+up, pretended he knew nothing of what was going forward, and asked what
+was required. He was told, and with sinking heart enthusiastically
+volunteered for the job.
+
+He rode off, taking the road by La Chevrie Farm. Beyond the farm the
+Germans sniped him unmercifully, but (so he told me) he got well down on
+the tank and rode "all out" until he came to the firing line just
+south-west of the farm to the north of Chevrie. Major Buckle came out of
+his ditch to see what was wanted. The rifle fire seemed to increase. The
+air was buzzing, and just in front of his bicycle multitudinous little
+spurts of dust flecked the road.
+
+It was distinctly unpleasant, and, as Major Buckle persisted in standing
+in the middle of the road instead of taking the despatch rider with him
+into his ditch, the despatch rider had to stand there too, horribly
+frightened. The Major said it was impossible to go farther. There was
+only a troop of cavalry, taking careful cover, at the farm in front,
+and--
+
+     "My God, man, you're under machine-gun fire."
+
+So that's what it is, murmured the despatch rider to himself, not
+greatly cheered. He saw he could not get to any vantage point by that
+road, and it seemed best to get back at once. He absolutely streaked
+along back to D.H.Q., stopping on the way very much against his will to
+deliver a message from Major Buckle to the Duke of Wellington's who were
+in support.
+
+He gave in his report, such as it was, to Colonel Romer, and was
+praised. Moral: Be called away by some pressing engagement _before_ the
+captain calls for volunteers. May _Gott strafe_ thoroughly all
+interfering sergeants!
+
+The Headquarters Staff advanced in an hour or so to some houses. The 3rd
+Corps, consisting of the 4th Division and the unlucky 19th Brigade, had
+pushed on with tremendous dash towards Jouarre, and we learnt from an
+aeroplane which dropped a message on the hill at Doué that the general
+situation was favourable. The Germans were crowding across the bridge at
+La Ferté under heavy shell fire, but unluckily we could not hit the
+blighted bridge.
+
+It was now midday and very hot. There was little water. We had been
+advancing over open fields without a vestige of shade.
+
+Under cover of their guns the Germans fled across the Petit Morin in
+such confusion that they did not even hold the very defensible heights
+to the north of the river. We followed on their heels through St Ouen
+and up the hill behind the village. Three of us went on ahead and sat
+for two hours in a trench with borrowed rifles waiting for the Germans
+to come out of a wood. But it began to rain very hard, and the Germans
+came on the other side and were taken by the Cyclists.
+
+It was just getting dark when we rendezvoused at the cross-roads of
+Charnesseuil. The village was battered by our guns, but the villagers
+did not mind a scrap and welcomed us with screams of joy. The local inn
+was reopened with cheers, and in spite of the fact that there were two
+dead horses, very evil-smelling, just outside, we had drinks all round.
+
+We were interrupted by laughter and cheers. We rushed out to see the
+quaintest procession coming from the west into Charnesseuil. Seventy odd
+immense Prussian Guards were humbly pushing in the bicycles of forty of
+our Divisional Cyclists, who were dancing round them in delight. They
+had captured a hundred and fifty of them, but our guns had shelled them,
+luckily without doing much damage to the Cyclists, so loading up the
+prisoners with all their kit and equipment, and making them lead their
+captors' bicycles, the Cyclists brought them in triumph for the
+inspection of the Staff. It was a great moment.
+
+I was very tired, and, careless of who passed, stretched myself at the
+side of the road for a sleep. I was wakened an hour later, and we all
+went along together to the chateau. There we slept in the hall before
+the contented faces of some fine French pictures--or the majority of
+them,--the rest were bestially slashed.
+
+At the break of dawn (Sept. 9th) I was sent off to the 14th Brigade,
+which composed the advance-guard. Scouts had reported that Saacy had
+been evacuated by the enemy. So we pushed on cautiously and took
+possession of the bridge.
+
+I came up with the Brigade Staff on a common at the top of the
+succeeding hill, having been delayed by a puncture. Nixon, the S.O.,
+told me that a battery of ours in position on the common to the south of
+the farm would open fire in a few minutes. The German guns would reply,
+but would be quickly silenced. In the meantime I was to take shelter in
+the farm.
+
+I had barely put my bicycle under cover in the courtyard when the
+Germans opened fire, not at our guns but at a couple of companies of the
+Manchesters who were endeavouring to take cover just north of the farm.
+
+In the farm I found King and his platoon of Cyclists. Shrapnel bullets
+simply rattled against the old house, and an occasional common shell
+dropped near by way of variety. The Cyclists were restive, and I was
+too, so to relieve the situation I proposed breakfast. King and I had
+half a loaf of Saacy bread and half a pot of jam I always carried about
+with me. The rest went to the men. Our breakfast was nearly spoilt by
+the Manchesters, who, after they had lost a few men, rushed through the
+farm into the wood, where, naturally enough, they lost a few more. They
+besought the Cyclists to cover their retreat, but as it was from
+shrapnel we mildly suggested it was impossible.
+
+The courtyard was by this time covered with tiles and pitted with
+bullets. We, close up against the wall, had been quite moderately safe.
+The shelling slackened off, so we thought we had better do a bunk. With
+pride of race the motor-cyclist left last.
+
+The 14th Brigade had disappeared. I went back down the track and found
+the General and his staff, fuming, half-way up the hill. The German guns
+could not be found, and the German guns were holding up the whole
+Division.
+
+I slept by the roadside for an hour. I was woken up to take a message to
+2nd Corps at Saacy. On my return I was lucky enough to see a very
+spectacular performance.
+
+From the point which I call A to the point B is, or ought to be, 5000
+yards. At A there is a gap in the wood, and you get a gorgeous view over
+the valley. The road from La Ferté to the point B runs on high ground,
+and at B there is a corresponding gap, the road being open completely
+for roughly 200 yards. A convoy of German lorries was passing with an
+escort of infantry, and the General thought we might as well have a shot
+at them. Two 18-pdrs. were man-handled to the side of the hill and
+opened fire, while six of us with glasses and our lunch sat behind and
+watched.
+
+It was a dainty sight--the lorries scooting across, while the escort
+took cover. The guns picked off a few, completely demolishing two
+lorries, then with a few shells into some cavalry that appeared on the
+horizon, they ceased fire.
+
+The affair seemed dangerous to the uninitiated despatch rider. Behind
+the two guns was a brigade of artillery in column of route on an
+exceedingly steep and narrow road. Guns firing in the open can be seen.
+If the Germans were to spot us, we shuddered to think what would become
+of the column behind us on the road.
+
+That afternoon I had nothing more to do, so, returning to the common, I
+dozed there for a couple of hours, knowing that I should have little
+sleep that night. At dusk we bivouacked in the garden of the chateau at
+Méry. We arrived at the chateau before the Staff and picked up some
+wine.
+
+In the evening I heard that a certain captain in the gunners went
+reconnoitring and found the battery--it was only one--that had held up
+our advance. He returned to the General, put up his eyeglass and
+drawled, "I say, General, I've found that battery. I shall now deal with
+it." He did. In five minutes it was silenced, and the 14th attacked up
+the Valley of Death, as the men called it. They were repulsed with very
+heavy losses; their reinforcements, which had arrived the day before,
+were practically annihilated.
+
+It was a bad day.
+
+That night it was showery, and I combined vain attempts to get to sleep
+between the showers with a despatch to 2nd Corps at Saacy and another to
+the Division Ammunition Column the other side of Charnesseuil.
+
+Towards morning the rain became heavier, so I took up my bed--_i.e._, my
+greatcoat and ground-sheet--and, finding four free square feet in the
+S.O., had an hour's troubled sleep before I was woken up half an hour
+before dawn to get ready to take an urgent message as soon as it was
+light.
+
+On September 9th, just before dawn--it was raining and very cold--I was
+sent with a message to Colonel Cameron at the top of the hill, telling
+him he might advance. The Germans, it appeared, had retired during the
+night. Returning to the chateau at Méry, I found the company had gone
+on, so I followed them along the Valley of Death to Montreuil.
+
+It was the dismallest morning, dark as if the sun would never rise,
+chequered with little bursts of heavy rain. The road was black with mud.
+The hedges dripped audibly into watery ditches. There was no grass, only
+a plentiful coarse vegetation. The valley itself seemed enclosed by
+unpleasant hills from joy or light. Soldiers lined the road--some were
+dead, contorted, or just stretched out peacefully; some were wounded,
+and they moaned as I passed along. There was one officer who slowly
+moved his head from side to side. That was all he could do. But I could
+not stop; the ambulances were coming up. So I splashed rapidly through
+the mud to the cross-roads north of Montreuil.
+
+To the right was a barn in which the Germans had slept. It was littered
+with their equipment. And in front of it was a derelict motor-car
+dripping in the rain.
+
+At Montreuil we had a scrap of bully with a bit of biscuit for
+breakfast, then we ploughed slowly and dangerously alongside the column
+to Dhuizy, where a house that our artillery had fired was still burning.
+The chalked billeting marks of the Germans were still on the doors of
+the cottages. I had a despatch to take back along the column to the
+Heavies. Grease a couple of inches thick carpeted the road. We all
+agreed that we should be useless in winter.
+
+At Dhuizy the sun came out.
+
+A couple of miles farther on I had a talk with two German
+prisoners--R.A.M.C. They were sick of the war. Summed it up thus:
+
+Wir weissen nichts: wir essen nichts: immer laufen, laufen, laufen.
+
+In bright sunshine we pushed on towards Gandeln. On the way we had a
+bit of lunch, and I left a pipe behind. As there was nothing doing I
+pushed on past the column, waiting for a moment to watch some infantry
+draw a large wood, and arrived with the cavalry at Gandeln, a rakish old
+town at the bottom of an absurdly steep hill. Huggie passed me with a
+message. Returning he told me that the road ahead was pitiably
+disgusting.
+
+You must remember that we were hotly pursuing a disorganised foe. In
+front the cavalry and horse artillery were harassing them for all they
+were worth, and whenever there was an opening our bigger guns would
+gallop up for a trifle of blue murder.
+
+From Gandeln the road rises sharply through woods and then runs on high
+ground without a vestige of cover for two and a half miles into Chézy.
+On this high, open ground our guns caught a German convoy, and we saw
+the result.
+
+First there were a few dead and wounded Germans, all muddied. The men
+would look curiously at each, and sometimes would laugh. Then at the top
+of the hill we came upon some smashed and abandoned waggons. These were
+hastily looted. Men piled themselves with helmets, greatcoats, food,
+saddlery, until we looked a crowd of dishevelled bandits. The German
+wounded watched--they lay scattered in a cornfield, like poppies.
+Sometimes Tommy is not a pleasant animal, and I hated him that
+afternoon. One dead German had his pockets full of chocolate. They
+scrambled over him, pulling him about, until it was all divided.
+
+Just off the road was a small sandpit. Three or four waggons--the
+horses, frightened by our shells, had run over the steep place into the
+sand. Their heads and necks had been forced back into their carcasses,
+and on top of this mash were the splintered waggons. I sat for a long
+time by the well in Chézy and watched the troops go by, caparisoned with
+spoils. I hated war.
+
+Just as the sun was setting we toiled out of Chézy on to an upland of
+cornfields, speckled with grey patches of dead men and reddish-brown
+patches of dead horses. One great horse stood out on a little cliff,
+black against the yellow of the descending sun. It furiously stank. Each
+time I passed it I held my nose, and I was then pretty well used to
+smells. The last I saw of it--it lay grotesquely on its back with four
+stiff legs sticking straight up like the legs of an overturned table--it
+was being buried by a squad of little black men billeted near. They were
+cursing richly. The horse's revenge in death, perhaps, for its
+ill-treatment in life.
+
+It was decided to stay the night at Chézy. The village was crowded,
+dark, and confusing. Three of us found the signal office, and made
+ourselves very comfortable for the night with some fresh straw that we
+piled all over us. The roads were for the first time too greasy for
+night-riding. The rest slept in a barn near, and did not discover the
+signal office until dawn.
+
+We awoke, stiff but rested, to a fine warm morning. It was a quiet day.
+We rode with the column along drying roads until noon through peaceful
+rolling country--then, as there was nothing doing, Grimers and I rode to
+the head of the column, and inquiring with care whether our cavalry was
+comfortably ahead, came to the village of Noroy-sur-Ourcq. We
+"scrounged" for food and found an inn. At first our host, a fat
+well-to-do old fellow, said the Germans had taken everything, but, when
+he saw we really were hungry, he produced sardines, bread, butter,
+sweets, and good red wine. So we made an excellent meal--and were not
+allowed to pay a penny.
+
+He told that the Germans, who appeared to be in great distress, had
+taken everything in the village, though they had not maltreated any one.
+Their horses were dropping with fatigue--that we knew--and their
+officers kept telling their men to hurry up and get quickly on the
+march. At this point they were just nine hours in front of us.
+
+Greatly cheered we picked up the Division again at Chouy, and sat
+deliciously on a grass bank to wait for the others. Just off the road on
+the opposite side was a dead German. Quite a number of men broke their
+ranks to look curiously at him--anything to break the tedious, deadening
+monotony of marching twenty-five miles day after day: as a major of the
+Dorsets said to us as we sat there, "It is all right for us, but it's
+hell for them!"
+
+The Company came up, and we found that in Chouy the Germans had
+overlooked a telephone--great news for the cable detachment. After a
+glance at the church, a gorgeous bit of Gothic that we had shelled, we
+pushed on in the rain to Billy-sur-Ourcq. I was just looking after a
+convenient loft when I was sent back to Chouy to find the Captain's
+watch. A storm was raging down the valley. The road at any time was
+covered with tired foot sloggers. I had to curse them, for they wouldn't
+get out of the way. Soon I warmed and cursed them crudely and glibly in
+four languages. On my return I found some looted boiled eggs and
+captured German Goulasch hot for me. I fed and turned in.
+
+This day my kit was left behind with other unnecessary "tackle," to
+lighten the horses' load. I wish I had known it.
+
+The remaining eggs for breakfast--delicious.
+
+Huggie and I were sent off just before dawn on a message that took us to
+St Rémy, a fine church, and Hartennes, where we were given hot tea by
+that great man, Sergeant Croucher of the Divisional Cyclists. I rode
+back to Rozet St Albin, a pleasant name, along a road punctuated with
+dead and very evil-smelling horses. Except for the smell it was a good
+run of about ten miles. I picked up the Division again on the sandy road
+above Chacrise.
+
+Sick of column riding I turned off the main road up a steep hill into
+Ambrief, a desolate black-and-white village totally deserted. It came on
+to pour, but there was a shrine handy. There I stopped until I was
+pulled out by an ancient captain of cuirassiers, who had never seen an
+Englishman before and wanted to hear all about us.
+
+On into Acy, where I decided to head off the Division at Ciry, instead
+of crossing the Aisne and riding straight to Vailly, our proposed H.Q.
+for that night. The decision saved my life, or at least my liberty. I
+rode to Sermoise, a bright little village where the people were actually
+making bread. At the station there was a solitary cavalry man. In Ciry
+itself there was no one. Half-way up the Ciry hill, a sort of dry
+watercourse, I ran into some cavalry and learnt that the Germans were
+holding the Aisne in unexpected strength. I had all but ridden round and
+in front of our own cavalry outposts.
+
+Two miles farther back I found Huggie and one of our brigades. We had a
+bit of bully and biscuit under cover of a haystack, then we borrowed
+some glasses and watched bodies of Germans on the hills the other side
+of the Aisne. It was raining very fast. There was no decent cover, so we
+sat on the leeward side of a mound of sand.
+
+When we awoke the sun was setting gorgeously. Away to the west in the
+direction of Soissons there was a tremendous cannonade. On the hills
+opposite little points of flame showed that the Germans were replying.
+On our right some infantry were slowly advancing in extended order
+through a dripping turnip-field.
+
+The Battle of the Aisne had begun.
+
+We were wondering what to do when we were commandeered to take a message
+down that precipitous hill of Ciry to some cavalry. It was now quite
+dark and still raining. We had no carbide, and my carburetter had
+jibbed, so we decided to stop at Ciry for the night. At the inn we found
+many drinks--particularly some wonderful cherry brandy--and a friendly
+motor-cyclist who told us of a billet that an officer was probably going
+to leave. We went there. Our host was an old soldier, so, after his wife
+had hung up what clothes we dared take off to dry by a red-hot stove, he
+gave us some supper of stewed game and red wine, then made us cunning
+beds with straw, pillows, and blankets. Too tired to thank him we
+dropped asleep.
+
+That, though we did not know it then, was the last night of our little
+Odyssey. We had been advancing or retiring without a break since my
+tragic farewell to Nadine. We had been riding all day and often all
+night. But those were heroic days, and now as I write this in our
+comfortable slack winter quarters, I must confess--I would give anything
+to have them all over again. Now we motor-cyclists are middle-aged
+warriors. Adventures are work. Experiences are a routine. Then, let's be
+sentimental, we were young.
+
+[Illustration: THE AISNE
+(SOISSONS _TO_ VAILLY)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE.
+
+
+I'm going to start by giving you an account of what we thought of the
+military situation during the great marches and the battle of the
+Aisne--for my own use. What happened we shall be able to look up
+afterwards in some lumbersome old history, should we forget, but, unless
+I get down quickly what we thought, it will disappear in
+after-knowledge.
+
+You will remember how the night we arrived on the Aisne Huggie and I
+stretched ourselves on a sand-heap at the side of the road--just above
+Ciry--and watched dim columns of Germans crawling like grey worms up the
+slopes the other side of the valley. We were certain that the old
+Division was still in hot cry on the heels of a rapidly retreating foe.
+News came--I don't know how: you never do--that our transport and
+ammunition were being delayed by the fearsome and lamentable state of
+the roads. But the cavalry was pushing on ahead, and tired infantry were
+stumbling in extended order through the soaked fields on either side of
+us. There was hard gunnery well into the red dusk. Right down the valley
+came the thunder of it, and we began to realise that divisions, perhaps
+even corps, had come up on either flank.
+
+The ancient captain of cuirassiers, who had hauled me out of my shrine
+into the rain that afternoon, made me understand there was a great and
+unknown number of French on our left. From the Order before the Marne I
+had learnt that a French Army had turned the German right, but the first
+news I had had of French on our own right was when one staff-officer
+said in front of me that the French away to the east had been held up.
+That was at Doué.
+
+Our retreat had been solitary. The French, everybody thought, had left
+us in the lurch at Mons and again at Le Cateau, when the cavalry we knew
+to be there refused to help us. For all we knew the French Army had been
+swept off the face of the earth. We were just retiring, and retiring
+before three or four times our own numbers. We were not even supported
+by the 1st Corps on our right. It was smashed, and had all it could do
+to get itself away. We might have been the Ten Thousand.
+
+But the isolation of our desperate retreat dismayed nobody, for we all
+had an unconquerable belief in the future. There must be some French
+somewhere, and in spite--as we thought then--of our better judgments, we
+stuck to the story that was ever being circulated: "We are luring the
+Germans into a trap." It was impressed upon us, too, by "the Div." that
+both at Mons and Le Cateau we were strategically victorious. We had
+given the Germans so hard a knock that they could not pursue us at once;
+we had covered the retirement of the 1st Corps; we had got away
+successfully ourselves. We were sullen and tired victors, never
+defeated. If we retreated, it was for a purpose. If we advanced, the
+Germans were being crushed.
+
+The Germans thought we were beaten, because they didn't realise we knew
+we were victorious the whole time.
+
+I do not say that we were always monotonously cheerful. The night after
+Le Cateau we all thought the game was up,--until the morning, when
+cheerfulness came with the sun. Then we sighed with relief and
+remembered a little bitterly that we were "luring the Germans on."
+
+Many a time I have come across isolated units in hot corners who did
+not see a way out. Yet if a battery or a battalion were hard hit, the
+realisation of local defeat was always accompanied by a fervent faith
+that "the old Fifth" was doing well. Le Cateau is a victory in the
+soldier's calendar.
+
+     Lè Cateàu and Là Bassèe,
+     It jolly well serves them right.
+
+We had been ten days or more on the Aisne before we grasped that the
+force opposite us was not merely a dogged, well-entrenched rearguard,
+but a section of the German line.
+
+Soon after we arrived a French cavalry officer had ridden into D.H.Q.,
+and after his departure it was freely rumoured that he had ridden right
+round the German position. News began to trickle in from either flank.
+Our own attacks ceased, and we took up a defensive position. It was the
+beginning of trench-warfare, though owing to the nature of the country
+there were few trenches. Then we heard vaguely that the famous series of
+enveloping movements had begun, but by this time the Division was tired
+to death, and the men were craving for a rest.
+
+Strategy in the ranks--it was elementary stuff pieced vaguely together.
+But perhaps it will interest you at home to know what we thought out
+here on this great little stage. What we did you have heard. Still,
+here is the play as we acted in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Along the Aisne the line of our Division stretched from Venizel to the
+bridge of Condé. You must not think of the river as running through a
+gorge or as meandering along the foot of slopes rising directly from the
+river bank. On the southern side lie the Heights of Champagne,
+practically a tableland. From the river this tableland looks like a
+series of ridges approaching the valley at an angle. Between the
+foothills and the river runs the Soissons-Rheims road, good _pavé_, and
+for the most part covered by trees. To the north there is a distance of
+two miles or so from the river to the hills.
+
+Perhaps I shall make this clearer if I take the three main points about
+the position.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_First._ If you are going to put troops on the farther side of the river
+you must have the means of crossing it, and you must keep those means
+intact. The bridges running from left to right of our line were at
+Venizel, Missy, Sermoise, and Condé. The first three were blown up.
+Venizel bridge was repaired sufficiently to allow of light traffic to
+cross, and fifty yards farther down a pontoon-bridge was built fit for
+heavy traffic. Missy was too hot: we managed an occasional ferry. I do
+not think we ever had a bridge at Sermoise. Once when in search of the
+C.R.E. I watched a company of the K.O.S.B. being ferried across under
+heavy rifle fire. The raft was made of ground-sheets stuffed, I think,
+with straw. Condé bridge the Germans always held, or rather neither of
+us held it, but the Germans were very close to it and allowed nobody to
+cross. Just on our side of the bridge was a car containing two dead
+officers. No one could reach them. There they sat until we left, ghastly
+sentinels, and for all I know they sit there still.
+
+Now all communication with troops on the north bank of the river had to
+pass over these bridges, of which Venizel alone was comparatively safe.
+If ever these bridges should be destroyed, the troops on the north bank
+would be irrevocably cut off from supplies of every sort and from
+orders. I often used to wonder what would have happened if the Germans
+had registered accurately upon the bridges, or if the river had risen
+and swept the bridges away.
+
+_Second._ There was an open belt between the river and the villages
+which we occupied--Bucy-le-Long, St Marguerite, Missy. The road that
+wound through this belt was without the veriest trace of cover--so much
+so, that for a considerable time all communication across it was carried
+on by despatch riders, for a cable could never be laid. So if our
+across-the-river brigades had ever been forced to retire in daylight
+they would have been compelled, first to retire two miles over
+absolutely open country, and then to cross bridges of which the
+positions were known with tolerable accuracy to the Germans.
+
+_Third._ On the northern bank four or five spurs came down into the
+plain, parallel with each other and literally at right angles to the
+river. The key to these was a spur known as the Chivres hill or plateau.
+This we found impregnable to the attack of two brigades. It was steep
+and thickly wooded. Its assailants, too, could be heavily enfiladed from
+either flank.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now you have the position roughly. The tactics of our Division were
+simple. In the early days, when we thought that we had merely a
+determined rearguard in front of us, we attacked. Bridges--you will
+remember the tale--were most heroically built. Two brigades (14th and
+15th) crossed the river and halted at the very foot of the hills, where
+they were almost under cover from alien fire. The third brigade was on
+their right in a position I will describe later.
+
+Well, the two brigades attacked, and attacked with artillery support,
+but they could not advance. That was the first phase. Then orders came
+that we were to act on the defensive, and finally of our three brigades,
+one was on the right, one across the river, and one in a second line of
+trenches on the southern bank of the river acted as divisional reserve.
+That for us was the battle of the Aisne. It was hard fighting all
+through.[13]
+
+Under these conditions there was plentiful work for despatch riders. I
+am going to try and describe it for you.
+
+When D.H.Q. are stationary, the work of despatch riders is of two kinds.
+First of all you have to find the positions of the units to which you
+are sent. Often the Signal Office gives you the most exiguous
+information. "The 105th Brigade is somewhere near Ciry," or "The Div.
+Train is at a farm just off the Paris-Bordeaux" road. Starting out with
+these explicit instructions, it is very necessary to remember that they
+may be wrong and are probably misleading. That is not the fault of the
+Signal Office. A Unit changes ground, say from a farm on the road to a
+farm off the road. These two farms are so near each other that there is
+no need to inform the Div. just at present of this change of residence.
+The experienced despatch rider knows that, if he is told the 105th
+Brigade is at 1904 Farm, the Brigade is probably at 1894 Farm, half a
+mile away.
+
+Again, a despatch rider is often sent out after a unit has moved and
+before the message announcing the move has "come through" to the
+Division.
+
+When the Division is advancing or retiring this exploration-work is the
+only work. To find a given brigade, take the place at which it was last
+reported at the Signal Office and assume it was never there. Prefer the
+information you get from your fellow despatch riders. Then find out the
+road along which the brigade is said to be moving. If the brigade may be
+in action, take a road that will bring you to the rear of the brigade.
+If there are troops in front of the brigade, strike for the head of it.
+It is always quicker to ride from van to rear of a brigade than from
+rear to van.
+
+The second kind of work consists in riding along a road already known. A
+clever despatch rider may reduce this to a fine art. He knows exactly at
+which corner he is likely to be sniped, and hurries accordingly. He
+remembers to a yard where the sentries are. If the road is under shell
+fire, he recalls where the shells usually fall, the interval between the
+shells and the times of shelling. For there is order in everything, and
+particularly in German gunnery. Lastly, he does not race along with nose
+on handle-bar. That is a trick practised only by despatch riders who are
+rarely under fire, who have come to a strange and alarming country from
+Corps or Army Headquarters. The experienced motor-cyclist sits up and
+takes notice the whole time. He is able at the end of his ride to give
+an account of all that he has seen on the way.
+
+D.H.Q. were at Serches, a wee village in a hollow at the head of a
+valley. So steeply did the hill rise out of the hollow to the north that
+the village was certainly in dead ground. A fine road went to the west
+along the valley for three miles or so to the Soissons-Rheims road. For
+Venizel you crossed the main road and ran down a little hill through a
+thick wood, terribly dark of nights, to the village; you crossed the
+bridge and opened the throttle.
+
+The first time I rode north from Venizel, Moulders was with me. On the
+left a few hundred yards away an ammunition section that had crossed by
+the pontoon was at full gallop. I was riding fast--the road was
+loathsomely open--but not too fast, because it was greasy. A shell
+pitched a couple of hundred yards off the road, and then others, far
+enough away to comfort me.
+
+A mile on the road bends sharp left and right over the railway and past
+a small factory of some sort. The Germans loved this spot, and would
+pitch shells on it with a lamentable frequency. Soon it became too much
+of a routine to be effective. On shelling-days three shells would be
+dropped one after another, an interval of three minutes, and then
+another three. This we found out and rode accordingly.
+
+A hundred yards past the railway you ride into Bucy-le-Long and safety.
+The road swings sharp to the right, and there are houses all the way to
+St Marguerite.
+
+Once I was riding with despatches from D.H.Q. It was a heavy, misty day.
+As I sprinted across the open I saw shrapnel over St Marguerite, but I
+could not make out whether it was German shrapnel bursting over the
+village or our shrapnel bursting over the hills beyond. I slowed down.
+
+Now, as I have told you, on a motor-cycle, if you are going rapidly, you
+cannot hear bullets or shells coming or even shells bursting unless they
+are very near. Running slowly on top, with the engine barely turning
+over, you can hear everything. So I went slow and listened. Through the
+air came the sharp "woop-wing" of shrapnel bursting towards you, the
+most devilish sound of all. Some prefer the shriek of shrapnel to the
+dolorous wail and deep thunderous crash of high explosive. But nothing
+frightens me so much as the shrapnel-shriek.[14]
+
+Well, as I passed the little red factory I noticed that the shrapnel was
+bursting right over the village, which meant that as 80 per cent of
+shrapnel bullets shoot forward the village was comparatively safe. As a
+matter of fact the street was full of ricochetting trifles.
+
+Transport was drawn up well under cover of the wall and troops were
+marching in single file as near to the transport as possible. Two horses
+were being led down the middle of the street. Just before they reached
+me the nose of one of the horses suddenly was gashed and a stream of
+blood poured out. Just a ricochet, and it decided me. Despatch riders
+have to take care of themselves when H.Q. are eight miles away by road
+and there is no wire. I put my motor-cycle under cover and walked the
+remaining 200 yards.
+
+Coming back I heard some shouting, a momentary silence, then a flare of
+the finest blasphemy. I turned the bend to see an officer holding his
+severed wrist and cursing. He was one of those dashing fellows. He had
+ridden alongside the transport swearing at the men to get a move on. He
+had held up his arm to give the signal when a ricochet took his hand off
+cleanly. His men said not a word,--sat with an air of calm disapproval
+like Flemish oxen.
+
+It was one in the morning and dark on the road when I took my next
+despatch to St Marguerite. Just out of Bucy I passed Moulders, who
+shouted, "Ware wire and horses." Since last I had seen it the village
+had been unmercifully shelled. Where the transport had been drawn up
+there were shattered waggons. Strewn over the road were dead horses, of
+all carcasses the most ludicrously pitiful, and wound in and out of
+them, a witches' web, crawled the wire from the splintered telegraph
+posts. There was not a sound in the village except the gentle thump of
+my engine. I was forced to pull up, that I might more clearly see my
+way between two horses. My engine silent, I could only hear a little
+whisper from the house opposite and a dripping that I did not care to
+understand. Farther on a house had fallen half across the road. I
+scarcely dared to start my engine again in the silence of this desolate
+destruction. Then I could not, because the dripping was my petrol and
+not the gore of some slaughtered animal. A flooded carburettor is a
+nuisance in an unsavoury village.
+
+At the eastern end of St Marguerite the road turns sharply south. This
+is "Hell's Own Corner." From it there is a full and open view of the
+Chivres valley, and conversely those in the Chivres valley can see the
+corner very clearly. When we were acting on the offensive, a section of
+4.5 in. howitzers were put into position just at the side of the road by
+the corner. This the Germans may have discovered, or perhaps it was only
+that the corner presented a tempting target, for they shelled to
+destruction everything within a hundred yards. The howitzers were
+rapidly put out of action though not destroyed, and a small orchard just
+behind them was ploughed, riven, and scarred with high explosive and
+shrapnel.
+
+The day St Marguerite was shelled one of the two brigadiers determined
+to shift his headquarters to a certain farm. N'Soon and Grimers were
+attached to the brigade at the time. "Headquarters" came to the corner.
+N'Soon and Grimers were riding slowly in front. They heard a shell
+coming. Grimers flung himself off his bicycle and dropped like a stone.
+N'Soon opened his throttle and darted forward, foolishly. The shell
+exploded. Grimers' bicycle was covered with branches and he with earth
+and dust. N'Soon for some reason was not touched.
+
+The General and his staff were shelled nearly the whole way to the farm,
+but nobody was hit. The brigade veterinary officer had a theory that the
+safest place was next the General, because generals were rarely hit, but
+that day his faith was shaken, and the next day--I will tell you the
+story--it tottered to destruction.
+
+I had come through St Marguerite the night after the brigade had moved.
+Of course I was riding without a light. I rounded Hell's Own Corner
+carefully, very frightened of the noise my engine was making. A little
+farther on I dismounted and stumbled to the postern-gate of a farm. I
+opened it and went in. A sentry challenged me in a whisper and handed me
+over to an orderly, who led me over the black bodies of men sleeping to
+a lean-to where the General sat with a sheltered light, talking to his
+staff. He was tired and anxious. I delivered my despatch, took the
+receipted envelope and stumbled back to the postern-gate. Silently I
+hauled my motor-cycle inside, then started on my tramp to the General
+who had moved.
+
+After Hell's Own Corner the road swings round again to the east, and
+runs along the foot of the Chivres hill to Missy. A field or so away to
+the left is a thick wood inhabited for the most part by German snipers.
+In the preceding days N'Soon and Sadders had done fine work along this
+road in broad daylight, carrying despatches to Missy.
+
+I was walking, because no motor-cyclist goes by night to a battalion,
+and the noise of a motor-cycle would have advertised the presence of
+brigade headquarters somewhere on the road. It was a joyous tramp of two
+miles into the village of dark, ominous houses. I found a weary
+subaltern who put me on my way, a pitch-black lane between high walls.
+At the bottom of it I stepped upon an officer, who lay across the path
+asleep with his men. So tired was he that he did not wake. On over a
+field to the farm. I delivered my despatch to the Brigade-Major, whose
+eyes were glazed with want of sleep. He spoke to me in the pitiful
+monotone of the unutterably weary. I fed off bully, hot potatoes, bread
+and honey, then turned in.
+
+In the morning I had just finished my breakfast when a shell exploded
+fifty yards behind the farm, and others followed. "Headquarters" turned
+out, and we crawled along a shallow ditch at the side of a rough country
+road until we were two hundred yards from the farm. We endeavoured to
+get into communication with the other brigade by flag, but after the
+first message a shell dropped among the farther signallers and we saw no
+more of them.
+
+Shells began to drop near us. One fellow came uncomfortably close. It
+covered us with dirt as we "froze" to the bottom of the ditch. A little
+scrap of red-hot metal flew into the ground between me and the signal
+sergeant in front of me. I grabbed it, but dropped it because it was so
+hot; it was sent to the signal sergeant's wife and not to you.
+
+We crawled a hundred yards farther along to a place where the ditch was
+a little deeper, and we were screened by some bushes, but I think the
+General's red hat must have been marked down, because for the next hour
+we lay flat listening to the zip-zip of bullets that passed barely
+overhead.
+
+Just before we moved the Germans started to shell Missy with heavy
+howitzers. Risking the bullets, we saw the village crowned with great
+lumps of smoke. Our men poured out of it in more or less extended order
+across the fields. I saw them running, poor little khaki figures, and
+dropping like rabbits to the rifles of the snipers in the wood.
+
+Two hundred yards south of the St Marguerite-Missy road--that is,
+between the road and the ditch in which we were lying--there is a single
+line of railway on a slight embankment. Ten men in a bunch made for the
+cover it afforded. One little man with an enormous pack ran a few yards
+in front. Seven reached the top of the embankment, then three almost
+simultaneously put their hands before their eyes and dropped across the
+rails. The little man ran on until he reached us, wide-eyed, sweaty, and
+breathing in short gasps. The Brigade-Major shouted to him not to come
+along the road but to make across the field. Immediately the little man
+heard the voice of command he halted, stood almost to attention, and
+choked out, "But they're shelling us"--then, without another word he
+turned off across the fields and safely reached cover.
+
+In the ditch we were comfortable if confined, and I was frightened when
+the order came down, "Pass the word for the motor-cyclist." I crawled
+up to the General, received my despatch, and started walking across the
+field. Then I discovered there is a great difference between
+motor-cycling under rifle fire, when you can hear only the very close
+ones, and walking across a heavy turnip-field when you can hear all.
+Two-thirds of the way a sharp zip at the back of my neck and a
+remembrance of the three men stretched across the rails decided me. I
+ran.
+
+At the farm where the other brigade headquarters were stationed I met
+Sadders with a despatch for the general I had just left. When I
+explained to him where and how to go he blenched a little, and the
+bursting of a shell a hundred yards or so away made him jump, but he
+started off at a good round pace. You must remember we were not used to
+carrying despatches on foot.
+
+I rode lazily through St Marguerite and Bucy-le-Long, and turned the
+corner on to the open stretch. There I waited to allow a battery that
+was making the passage to attract as many shells as it liked. The
+battery reached Venizel with the loss of two horses. Then, just as I was
+starting off, a shell plunged into the ground by the little red factory.
+As I knew it to be the first of three I waited again.
+
+At that moment Colonel Seely's car came up, and Colonel Seely himself
+got out and went forward with me to see if the road had been damaged.
+For three minutes the road should have been safe, but the German machine
+became human, and in a couple of minutes Colonel Seely and I returned
+covered with rich red plough and with a singing in our ears. I gave the
+Colonel a couple of hundred yards start, and we sprinted across into the
+safe hands of Venizel.
+
+Beyond Missy, which we intermittently occupied, our line extended along
+the foot of the hills and crossed the Aisne about three-quarters of a
+mile short of Condé bridge--and that brings me to a tale.
+
+One night we were healthily asleep after a full day. I had been "next
+for duty" since ten o'clock, but at two I began to doze, because between
+two and five there is not often work for the despatch rider. At three I
+awoke to much shouting and anxious hullabaloo. The intelligence officer
+was rousing us hurriedly--"All motor-cyclists turn out. Pack up kit.
+Seven wanted at once in the Signal Office."
+
+This meant, firstly, that Divisional Headquarters were to move at once,
+in a hurry, and by night; secondly, that the same despatch was to be
+sent simultaneously to every unit in the Division. I asked somebody to
+get my kit together, and rushed upstairs to the Signal Office. There on
+the table I saw the fateful wire.
+
+"Germans entrenched south side of Condé bridge and are believed to be
+crossing in large numbers." I was given a copy of this message to take
+to the 15th Brigade, then at St Marguerite. Away on the road at full
+speed I thought out what this meant. The enemy had broken through our
+line--opposite Condé there were no reserves--advance parties of the
+Germans might even now be approaching headquarters--large numbers would
+cut us off from the Division on our right and would isolate the brigade
+to which I was going; it would mean another Le Cateau.
+
+I tore along to Venizel, and slowing down at the bridge shouted the news
+to the officer in charge--full speed across the plain to Bucy, and
+caring nothing for the sentries' shouts, on to St Marguerite. I dashed
+into the general's bedroom and aroused him. Almost before I had arrived
+the general and his brigade-major--both in pyjamas--were issuing
+commands and writing messages. Sleepy and amazed orderlies were sent out
+at the double. Battalion commanders and the C.R.E. were summoned.
+
+I started back for D.H.Q. with an acknowledgment, and rattling through
+the village came out upon the plain.
+
+Over Condé bridge an ochreous, heavy dawn broke sullenly. There was no
+noise of firing to tell me that the men of our right brigade were making
+a desperate resistance to a fierce advance. A mile from Serches I passed
+a field-ambulance loaded up for instant flight; the men were standing
+about in little groups talking together, as if without orders. At
+Headquarters I found that a despatch rider had been sent hot-foot to
+summon two despatch riders, who that night were with the corps, and
+others to every unit. Everybody carried the same command--load up and be
+ready to move at a moment's notice.
+
+Orders to move were never sent. Our two ghastly sentinels still held the
+bridge. It was a SCARE.
+
+The tale that we heard at the time was the tale of a little German
+firing--a lost patrol of ours, returning by an unauthorised road,
+mistaken in the mist for Germans--a verbal message that had gone wrong.
+As for the lieutenant who--it was said--first started the hare, his name
+was burnt with blasphemy for days and days. The only men who came out of
+it well were some of our cyclists, who, having made their nightly patrol
+up to the bridge, returned just before dawn to D.H.Q. and found the
+Division trying to make out that it had not been badly frightened.
+
+I did not hear what really happened at the bridge that night until I
+published my paper, "The Battle of the Aisne," in the May 'Blackwood.'
+Here is the story as I had it from the officer principally concerned:--
+
+Condé bridge was under our control by shell-fire alone, so that we were
+obliged to patrol its unpleasant neighbourhood by night. For this
+purpose an "officer's patrol" was organised (in addition to the
+"standing patrol" provided by the Cyclists) and supplied every night by
+different battalions. So many conflicting reports were received nightly
+about the bridge that the officer who told me the story was appointed
+Brigade Patrolling Officer.
+
+He established himself in a certain wood, and on the night in question
+worked right up beyond Condé bridge--until he found a burning house
+about 200 yards beyond the bridge on the south side of it. In the flare
+of the house he was surprised to discover Germans entrenched in an old
+drain on the British side of the river. He had unknowingly passed this
+body of the enemy.
+
+He heard, too, a continuous stream of Germans in the transport marching
+through the woods towards the bridge. Working his way back, he reported
+the matter personally to the Brigadier of the 13th, who sent the famous
+message to the Division.
+
+It appears that the Germans had come down to fill their water-carts that
+night, and to guard against a surprise attack had pushed forward two
+platoons across the bridge into the drain. Unfortunately one of our
+patrols disobeyed its orders that night and patrolled a forbidden
+stretch of road. The officer shot two of these men in the dark.
+
+Three days later the outpost company on Vesle bridge of the Aisne was
+surrounded, and, later still, Condé bridge passed out of our artillery
+control, and was finally crossed by the Germans.
+
+I have written of this famous scare of Condé bridge in detail, not
+because it was characteristic, but because it was exceptional. It is the
+only scare we ever had in our Division, and amongst those who were on
+the Aisne, and are still with the Division, it has become a phrase for
+encouragement--"Only another Condé."
+
+During the first days on this monotonous river, the days when we
+attacked, the staff of our right brigade advanced for a time into open
+country and took cover behind the right haystack of three. To this
+brigade Huggie took a message early one morning, and continued to take
+messages throughout the day because--this was his excuse--he knew the
+road. It was not until several months later that I gathered by chance
+what had happened on that day, for Huggie, quite the best despatch rider
+in our Division, would always thwart my journalistic curiosity by
+refusing resolutely to talk about himself. The rest of us swopped yarns
+of an evening.
+
+These haystacks were unhealthy: so was the approach to them. First one
+haystack was destroyed. The brigade went to the next. This second was
+blown to bits. The staff took refuge behind the third. In my letters I
+have told you of the good things the other despatch riders in our
+Division have done, but to keep up continuous communication all day with
+this be-shelled and refugee brigade was as fine a piece of despatch
+riding as any. It received its proper reward, as you know.
+
+Afterwards the brigade emigrated to a hillside above Ciry, and remained
+there. Now the German gunner in whose sector Ciry was included should
+not be dismissed with a word. He was a man of uncertain temper and
+accurate shooting, for in the first place he would shell Ciry for a few
+minutes at any odd time, and in the second he knocked a gun out in three
+shells and registered accurately, when he pleased, upon the road that
+led up a precipitous hill to the edge of the Serches hollow. On this
+hill he smashed some regimental transport to firewood and killed a dozen
+horses, and during one of his sudden shellings of the village blew a
+house to pieces just as a despatch rider, who had been told the village
+that morning was healthy, rode by.
+
+You must not think that we were for ever scudding along, like the
+typical "motor-cyclist scout" in the advertisements, surrounded with
+shells. There was many a dull ride even to Bucy-le-Long. An expedition
+to the Div. Train (no longer an errant and untraceable vagabond) was
+safe and produced jam. A ride to Corps Headquarters was only dangerous
+because of the innumerable and bloodthirsty sentries surrounding that
+stronghold.
+
+One afternoon a report came through to the Division that a motor-car lay
+derelict at Missy. So "the skipper" called for two volunteers who should
+be expert mechanics. Divisional Signal companies were not then provided
+with cars, and if the C.O. wished to go out to a brigade, which might be
+up to or over eight miles away, he was compelled to ride a horse,
+experiment with a motor-cycle that was probably badly missed by the
+despatch riders, or borrow one of the staff cars. Huggie and the elder
+Cecil volunteered.
+
+As soon as it was dusk they rode down to Sermoise, and crossing by the
+ferry--it was perilous in the dark--made their way with difficulty
+across country to Missy, which was then almost in front of our lines.
+They found the car, and examining it discovered that to outward
+appearance it was sound,--a great moment when after a turn or two of the
+handle the engine roared into the darkness, but the noise was alarming
+enough because the Germans were none too far away.
+
+They started on their journey home--by St Marguerite and Venizel. Just
+after they had left the village the beam of an alien searchlight came
+sweeping along the road. Before the glare had discovered their nakedness
+they had pulled the car to the side of the road under the shelter of the
+hedge nearest the Germans, and jumping down had taken cover. By all the
+rules of the game it was impossible to drive a car that was not exactly
+silent along the road from Missy to Hell's Own Corner. The searchlight
+should have found them, and the fire of the German snipers should have
+done the rest. But their luck was in, and they made no mistakes.
+Immediately the beam had passed they leaped on to the car and tore
+scathless into St Marguerite and so back to the Division.
+
+After its capture the car was exhibited with enormous pride to all that
+passed by. We should not have been better pleased if we had captured the
+whole Prussian Guard. For prisoners disappear and cannot always be shown
+to prove the tale. The car was an [Greek: aei ktêma].
+
+In the morning we rode down into Sermoise for the motor-cycles. Sermoise
+had been shelled to pieces, but I shall never forget a brave and
+obstinate inhabitant who, when a shell had gone through his roof and
+demolished the interior of his house, began to patch his roof with
+bully-tins and biscuit-tins that he might at least have shelter from the
+rain.
+
+Elated with our capture of the car we scented greater victories. We
+heard of a motor-boat on the river near Missy, and were filled with
+visions of an armoured motor-boat, stuffed with machine-guns, plying up
+and down the Aisne. Huggie and another made the excursion. The boat was
+in an exposed and altogether unhealthy position, but they examined it,
+and found that there was no starting-handle. In the village forge, which
+was very completely fitted up, they made one that did not fit, and then
+another, but however much they coaxed, the engine would not start. So
+regretfully they left it.
+
+To these adventures there was a quiet background of uncomfortable but
+pleasant existence. Life on the Aisne was like a "reading party"--only
+instead of working at our books we worked at soldiering.
+
+The night that Huggie and I slept down at Ciry, the rest of the despatch
+riders, certain that we were taken, encamped at Ferme d'Epitaphe, for
+the flooded roads were impassable. There we found them in the morning,
+and discovered they had prepared the most gorgeous stew of all my
+recollection.
+
+Now, to make a good stew is a fine art, for a stew is not merely a
+conglomeration of bully and vegetables and water boiled together until
+it looks nice. First the potatoes must be cut out to a proper size and
+put in; of potatoes there cannot be too many. As for the vegetables, a
+superfluity of carrots is a burden, and turnips should be used with a
+sparing hand. A full flavour of leek is a great joy. When the vegetables
+are nearly boiled, the dixie should be carefully examined by all to see
+if it is necessary to add water. If in doubt spare the water, for a rich
+thick gravy is much to be desired. Add bully, and get your canteens
+ready.
+
+This particular stew made by Orr was epic. At all other good stews it
+was recalled and discussed, but never did a stew come up to the stew
+that we so scrupulously divided among us on the bright morning of Sept.
+12, 1914, at Ferme d'Epitaphe, above Serches.
+
+Later in the day we took over our billet, a large bicycle shed behind
+the school in which D.H.Q. were installed. The front of it was open, the
+floor was asphalt, the roof dripped, and we shared it with the
+Divisional Cyclists. So close were we packed that you could not turn in
+your sleep without raising a storm of curses, and if you were called out
+of nights you were compelled to walk boldly over prostrate bodies,
+trusting to luck that you did not step on the face of a man who woke
+suddenly and was bigger than yourself.
+
+On the right of our dwelling was a little shed that was once used as a
+guard-room. A man and woman were brought in under suspicion of
+espionage. The woman was put in the shed. There she shrieked the night
+through, shouted for her husband (he had an ugly-sounding name that we
+could not understand), and literally tore her hair. The language of the
+Cyclists was an education even to the despatch riders, who once had been
+told by their Quartermaster-Sergeant that they left the cavalry
+standing. Finally, we petitioned for her removal, and once again slept
+peacefully. The Court of Inquiry found the couple were not spies, but
+unmarried. So it married them and let them go.
+
+The Cyclists were marvellous and indefatigable makers of tea. At any
+unearthly hour you might be gently shaken by the shoulder and a voice
+would whisper--
+
+"'Ave a drop o' tea--real 'ot and plenty o' sugar."
+
+Never have I come back from a night ride without finding a couple of
+cyclists squatting out in the gloom round a little bright fire of their
+own making, with some fine hot tea. Wherever they go may they never want
+a drink!
+
+And never shall I forget that fine bit of roast pork my friend Sergeant
+Croucher insisted on sharing with me one evening! I had not tasted fresh
+meat for weeks.
+
+George was our unofficial Quartermaster. He was and is a great man,
+always cheerful, able to coax bread, vegetables, wine, and other
+luxuries out of the most hardened old Frenchwoman; and the French,
+though ever pathetically eager to do anything for us, always charged a
+good round price. Candles were a great necessity, and could not be
+bought, but George always had candles for us. I forget at the moment
+whether they were for "Le General French, qui arrive," or "Les pauvres,
+pauvres, blessés." On two occasions George's genius brought him into
+trouble, for military law consists mainly of the commandment--
+
+"Thou shalt not allow thyself to be found out."
+
+We were short of firewood. So George discovered that his engine wanted a
+little tuning, and started out on a voyage of discovery. Soon he came
+upon a heap of neatly cut, neatly piled wood. He loaded up until he
+heard shouts, then fled. That night we had a great fire, but in the
+morning came tribulation. The shouts were the shouts of the C.R.E. and
+the wood was an embryonic bridge. Severely reprimanded.
+
+Then there was the Honey Question. There were bees in the village and we
+had no honey. The reputation of George was at stake. So one night we
+warily and silently approached some hives with candles; unfortunately we
+were interfered with by the military police. Still an expedition into
+the hedgerows and woods always had an excuse in time of war, and we made
+it.
+
+The village of Acy, high on the hill above the road to Venizel, was the
+richest hunting-ground. First, there was a bread-shop open at certain
+hours. George was often late, and, disdaining to take his place in the
+long line of those who were not despatch riders, would march straight in
+and demand bread for one of his two worthy charities. When these were
+looked upon with suspicion he engineered a very friendly understanding
+with the baker's wife.
+
+Then there was a dark little shop where you could buy good red wine, and
+beyond it a farmer with vegetables to sell. But his greatest find was
+the chateau, which clung to the edge of the hill and overlooked the
+valley of the Aisne to Condé Fort and the Hill of Chivres.
+
+Searching one morning amongst a pile of captured and derelict stuff we
+discovered a canvas bath. Now, not one of us had had a bath since Havre,
+so we made arrangements. Three of us took the bath up to the chateau,
+then inhabited by a caretaker and his wife. They brought us great pails
+of hot water, and for the first time in a month we were clean. Then we
+had tea and talked about the Germans who had passed through. The German
+officer, the old woman told us, had done them no harm, though he had
+seized everything without paying a sou. Just before he left bad news was
+brought to him. He grew very angry, and shouted to her as he rode off--
+
+"You shall suffer for this when we return;" but she laughed and shouted
+back at him, mocking--
+
+"When you return!"
+
+And then the English came.
+
+After tea we smoked our pipes in the terraced garden, watched the
+Germans shelling one of our aeroplanes, examined the German lines, and
+meditated in safety on the war just like newspaper correspondents.
+
+It was in Serches itself that George received the surprise of his life.
+He was after potatoes, and seeing a likely-looking old man pass, D.H.Q.
+ran after him. In his best French--"Avez-vous pommes-de-terre à vendre?"
+The old man turned round, smiled, and replied in broadest Yorkshire,
+"Wanting any 'taters?" George collapsed.
+
+It seems that the old fellow had settled in Serches years and years
+before. He had a very pretty daughter, who spoke a delectable mixture of
+Yorkshire and the local dialect. Of course she was suspected of being a
+spy--in fact, probably was--so the military police were set to watch
+her,--a job, I gathered later from one of them, much to their liking.
+
+Our life on the Aisne, except for little exciting episodes, was restful
+enough. We averaged, I should think, a couple of day messages and one
+each night, though there were intermittent periods of high pressure. We
+began to long for the strenuous first days, and the Skipper, finding
+that we were becoming unsettled, put us to drill in our spare time and
+gave some of us riding lessons. Then came rumours of a move to a
+rest-camp, probably back at Compiègne. The 6th Division arrived to take
+over from us, or so we were told, and Rich and Cuffe came over with
+despatches. We had not seen them since Chatham. They regarded us as
+veterans, and we told them the tale.
+
+One afternoon some artillery of this division came through the valley.
+They were fine and fresh, but not a single one of us believed they
+equalled ours. There was a line of men to watch them pass, and everybody
+discovered a friend until practically at every stirrup there was a man
+inquiring after a pal, answering questions, and asking what they thought
+in England, and how recruiting was going. The air rang with crude,
+great-hearted jokes. We motor-cyclists stood aside just criticising the
+guns and men and horses. We felt again that shyness we had felt at
+Chatham in front of the professional soldier. Then we remembered that we
+had been through the Retreat and the Advance, and went back to tea
+content.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] I do not pretend for a moment that all these details are
+meticulously accurate. They are what I knew or thought I knew at the
+time this was written.
+
+[14] Curiously enough, months after this was written the author was
+wounded by shrapnel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE MOVE TO THE NORTH.
+
+
+We left Serches at dusk with little regret and pushed on over the hill
+past Ferme d'Epitaphe of gluttonous memory, past the Headquarter clerks,
+who were jogging peacefully along on bicycles, down the other side of
+the hill, and on to the village of Maast.
+
+Headquarters were in a curious farm. One side of its court was formed by
+a hill in which there were caves--good shelter for the men. There was
+just one run that night to Corps H.Q. in a chateau three miles farther
+on.
+
+The morning was clear and sunny. A good, lazy breakfast preluded a great
+wash. Then we chatted discreetly with a Paris _midinette_ at the gate of
+the farm. Though not in Flanders, she was of the Flemish type,--bright
+colouring, high cheek-bones, dark eyes. On these little social
+occasions--they came all too rarely; that is why I always mention
+them--there was much advantage in being only a corporal. Officers, even
+Staff Officers, as they passed threw at us a look of admiration and
+envy. A salute was cheap at the price.
+
+In the afternoon there was a run, and when I returned I found that the
+rest-camp rumour had been replaced by two others--either we were going
+into action immediately a little farther along the line beyond Soissons,
+or we were about to make a dash to Ostend for the purpose of outflanking
+the Germans.
+
+We moved again at dusk, and getting clear of the two brigades with H.Q.
+rode rapidly twenty miles across country, passing over the road by which
+we had advanced, to Longpont, a big dark chateau set in a wood and with
+a French sentry at the gate. Our third brigade was trekking away into
+the darkness as we came in. We slept in a large room on straw
+mattresses--very comforting to the bones.
+
+The morning was again gorgeous, and again we breakfasted late and well.
+The chateau we discovered to be monumental, and beside it, set in a
+beautiful garden, was a ruined chapel, where a service was held--the
+first we had been able to attend since the beginning of the war.
+
+Our host, an old man, thin and lithe, and dressed in shiny black, came
+round during the day to see that we had all we needed. We heard a
+tale--I do not know how true it was--that the Crown Prince had stayed at
+the chateau. He had drunk much ancient and good wine, and what he had
+not drunk he had taken away with him, together with some objects of art.
+The chateau was full of good things.
+
+During the day I had a magnificent run of forty miles over straight dry
+roads to Hartennes, where, if you will remember, that great man,
+Sergeant Croucher of the cyclists, had given us tea, and on to Chacrise
+and Maast. It was the first long and open run I had had since the days
+of the retreat, when starting from La Pommeraye I had ridden through the
+forest to Compiègne in search of the Divisional Train.
+
+Just after I had returned we started off again--at dusk. I was sent
+round to a place, the name of which I cannot remember, to a certain
+division; then I struck north along a straight road through the forest
+to Villers-Cotterets. The town was crammed with French motor-lorries and
+crowded with French troops, who greeted me hilariously as I rode through
+to Véze.
+
+There we slept comfortably in the lodge of the chateau, all, that is,
+except Grimers, who had been seized with a puncture just outside the
+main hotel in Villers-Cotterets.
+
+In the morning I had a fine run to a brigade at Béthancourt, the little
+village, you will remember, where we lunched off an excellent omelette,
+and convinced the populace, with the help of our host, that the Germans
+would come no farther.
+
+While I was away the rest discovered some excellent white wine in the
+cellar of the lodge, and before starting again at dusk we made a fine
+meal. Cecil and I remained after the others had gone, and when the wife
+of the lodge-keeper came in and expressed her utter detestation of all
+troops, we told her that we were shedding our blood for France, and
+offered her forgetfully a glass of her own good wine.
+
+That night we slept at Béthisy St Martin. On the retreat, you will
+remember, the lord of the chateau had given some of the despatch riders
+dinner, before they learnt that D.H.Q. had been diverted to
+Crécy-en-Valois. He recognised us with joy, allowed us to take things
+from the kitchen, and in the morning hunted out for us a tennis set.
+Four of us who were not on duty played a great game on a very passable
+gravel court.
+
+We now heard that "the Division" was convinced that we were going to
+make a dash for Ostend, and rumour seemed to crystallise into truth
+when orders came that we were to entrain that night at Pont St Maxence.
+
+The despatch riders rode ahead of the column, and received a joyous
+welcome in the town. We stalked bravely into a café, and drank loud and
+hearty toasts with some friendly but rather drunk French soldiers.
+Gascons they were, and d'Artagnans all, from their proper boasting--the
+heart of a lion and the cunning of a fox, they said. One of us was
+called into a more sober chamber to drink ceremonious toasts in
+champagne with their officers. In the street another of us--I would not
+give even his initial--selecting the leading representative of young,
+demure, and ornamental maidenhood, embraced her in the middle of the
+most admiring crowd I have ever seen, while the rest of us explained to
+a half-angry mother that her daughter should be proud and happy--as
+indeed she was--to represent the respectable and historic town of Pont
+St Maxence.
+
+Then, amidst shrieks and cheers and cries of "Brave Tommy" and "We love
+you," the despatch riders of the finest and most famous of all Divisions
+rode singing to the station, where we slept peacefully on straw beside a
+large fire until the train came in and the Signal Company arrived.
+
+Our entraining at Pont St Maxence began with a carouse and ended with a
+cumulative disappointment. In the middle was the usual wait, a tiresome
+but necessary part of all military evolutions. To entrain a Signal
+Company sounds so simple. Here is the company--there is the train. But
+first comes the man-handling of cable-carts on to trucks that were built
+for the languid conveyance of perambulators. Then follows a little
+horseplay, and only those who, like myself, regard horses as
+unmechanical and self-willed instruments of war, know how terrifying a
+sight and how difficult a task the emboxing of a company's horses can
+be. Motor-cycles are heavy and have to be lifted, but they do not make
+noises and jib and rear, and look every moment as if they were going to
+fall backward on to the interested spectator.
+
+We despatch riders fetched a great deal of straw and made ourselves
+comfortable in one of those waggons that are marked outside, with such
+splendid optimism--
+
+     _Chevaux_ . . . .   8
+     _Hommes_  . . . .  40-5
+
+With our friend the Post-Sergeant and his underling there were roughly a
+dozen of us and no superfluity of space, but, seeing men wandering
+fiercely up and down the train under the command of our Sergeant-Major,
+we took in a H.Q. clerk. This ruffled us, but it had to be done. The
+Sergeant-Major came to our waggon. We stood at the door and pointed out
+to him that we had in our waggon not only all the despatch riders, but
+also the whole of the Postal and Headquarters Staffs. He said nothing to
+us--only told ten more men to get in. Finally we were twenty-five in
+all, with full equipment. Thinking of the 40-5 we settled down and
+managed to effect a compromise of room which, to our amazement, left us
+infinitely more comfortable than we had been in the III^{me} coming up
+from Havre to Landrecies.
+
+The train shuffled out of the station just before dawn. We slept a bit,
+and then, just as it was getting light, started our pipes and began to
+talk of the future.
+
+The general opinion favoured Ostend, though a sergeant hazarded that we
+were going to be shipped swiftly across to England to defend the East
+Coast. This suggestion was voted impossible and tactless--at least, we
+didn't put it quite like that. Ostend it was going to be--train to
+Abbéville, and then boat to Ostend, and a rapid march against the German
+flank.
+
+The discussion was interrupted by somebody saying he had heard from
+somebody who had been told by his Major, that 60,000 Germans had been
+killed in the last two days, Von Kluck had been killed by a lucky shell,
+and the Crown Prince had committed suicide. We were bringing the
+cynicism of youth to bear on the trustfulness of a mature mercenary when
+the train arrived at Amiens.
+
+Some washed. Some meditated on a train of French wounded and another
+train of Belgian refugees, humble and pitiful objects, very smelly. Two,
+not waiting for orders, rushed to the buffet and bought beer and
+sardines and chocolate and bread. One of these was cut off from his
+waggon by a long goods train that passed through, but he knew the ways
+of military trains, waited till the goods had passed, then ran after us
+and caught us up after a mile's jog-trot. The good people of Amiens, who
+had not so very long before been delivered from the Germans, were
+exceedingly affectionate, and threw us fruit, flowers, and kisses. Those
+under military age shrieked at the top of their shrill little trebles--
+
+Engleesh--Tipperary--Biskeet--Biskeet--Souvenir.
+
+We have never understood the cry of "Biskeet." The fat little fellows
+were obviously well nourished. Perhaps, dog-like, they buried their
+biscuits with a thought for the time when the English should be
+forgotten and hunger should take their place as something very present.
+
+So joyously we were rushed north at about five miles an hour, or eight
+kilometres per hour, which sounds better. Early in the afternoon we came
+to Abbéville, a hot and quiet station, and, with the aid of some London
+Scottish, disembarked. From these Scots we learnt that the French were
+having a rough time just north of Arras, that train-load upon train-load
+of wounded had come through, that our Corps (the 2nd) was going up to
+help.
+
+So even now we do not know whether we really were going to Ostend and
+were diverted to the La Bassée district to help the French who had got
+themselves into a hole, or whether Ostend was somebody's little tale.
+
+We rode through the town to the Great Barracks, where we were given a
+large and clean ward. The washing arrangements were sumptuous and we had
+truckle-beds to sleep upon, but the sanitation, as everywhere in France,
+was vile. We kicked a football about on the drill-ground. Then some of
+us went down into the town, while the rest of us waited impatiently for
+them to come back, taking a despatch or two in the meanwhile.
+
+From the despatch rider's point of view Abbéville is a large and
+admiring town, with good restaurants and better baths. These baths were
+finer than the baths of Havre--full of sweet-scented odours and the
+deliciously intoxicating fumes of good soap and plenteous boiling-water.
+
+In a little restaurant we met some friends of the 3rd Division and a
+couple of London Scots, who were getting heartily sick of the L. of C.,
+though taking prisoners round the outskirts of Paris had, I gather, its
+charm even for the most ardent warriors.
+
+In the morning there was parade, a little football, and then a stroll
+into the town. I had just finished showing an Intelligence Officer how
+to get a belt back on to the pulley of his motor-cycle when Cecil met me
+and told me we were to move north that evening.
+
+We had a delectable little tea, bought a map or two, and then strolled
+back to the barracks. In half an hour we were ready to move off, kit
+piled high upon our carriers, looking for all the world (said our C.O.)
+like those funny little animals that carry their houses upon their backs
+and live at the bottom of ponds. Indeed it was our boast that--such was
+our ingenuity--we were able to carry more kit than any regimental
+officer.
+
+It was dusk when N'Soon and I pushed off,--we had remained behind to
+deal with messages that might come in foolishly after the Division had
+left. We took the great highroad to Calais, and, carefully passing the
+General, who was clattering along with his staff and an escort of
+Hussars, we pulled up to light our lamps at a little estaminet with
+glowing red blinds just like the blinds of certain hospitable taverns in
+the city of Oxford. The coincidence was so remarkable that we were
+compelled to enter.
+
+We found a roaring, leaping log-fire, a courteous old Frenchman who
+drank our healths, an immense omelette, some particularly good coffee,
+and the other despatch riders.
+
+That night it was freezing hard. With our chairs drawn in close to the
+fire, a glass of something to keep the cold out ready to hand, and pipes
+going strong, we felt sorry for the general and his escort who, probably
+with chilled lips and numbed fingers, jogged resoundingly through the
+village street.
+
+Twenty minutes later we took the road, and soon, pretending that we had
+lost our way, again passed the general--and lost our way, or at least
+rode well past our turning. Finally, colder than we had ever been
+before, we reached the Chateau at Gueschart. There we found a charming
+and hospitable son of the house and a pleasantly adoring lad. With
+their aid we piled the floor of the harness-room with straw, and those
+of us who were not on duty slept finely.
+
+From the dawn of the next morning we were working at top pressure right
+through the day, keeping in touch with the brigades which were billeted
+in villages several miles distant.
+
+Late in the afternoon we discovered we were very short of petrol, so I
+was sent off to Crécy in our famous captured car, with a requisition. We
+arrived amidst cheers. I strode into the nearest garage and demanded 100
+litres of petrol. It was humbly brought and placed in the car: then I
+sent boys flying round the town for jam and bread and butter, and in the
+meantime we entertained the crowd by showing them a German helmet. I
+explained volubly that my bandaged fingers--there was an affair of
+outposts with an ambulance near Serches--were the work of shrapnel, and
+they nearly embraced me. A boy came back and said there was no jam, so
+the daughter of the house went to her private cupboard and brought me
+out two jars of jam she had made herself, and an enormous glass of wine.
+We drove off amidst more cheers, to take the wrong road out of the town
+in our great excitement.
+
+The brigades moved that night; headquarters remained at Gueschart until
+dawn, when the general started off in his car with two of us attendant.
+
+Now before the war a motor-cyclist would consider himself ill-used if he
+were forced to take a car's dust for a mile or so. Your despatch rider
+was compelled to follow in the wake of a large and fast Daimler for
+twenty-five miles, and at the end of it he did not know which was him
+and which dust.
+
+We came upon the 15th, shivering in the morning cold, and waiting for
+some French motor-buses. Then we rushed on to St Pol, which was crammed
+full of French transport, and on to Chateau Bryas. Until the other
+despatch riders came up there was no rest for the two of us that had
+accompanied the car. The roads, too, were blocked with refugees flying
+south from Lille and men of military age who had been called up. Once
+again we heard the distant sound of guns--for the first time since we
+had been at the Chateau of Longpont.
+
+At last we were relieved for an hour, and taking possession of a kitchen
+we fried some pork-chops with onions and potatoes. It was grand. We
+washed them down with coffee, and went back to duty. For the remainder
+of that day and for the whole of the night there was no rest for us.
+
+At dawn the Division marched in column of route north-east towards the
+sound of the guns.
+
+Half of us at a time slipped away and fed in stinking taverns--but the
+food was good.
+
+I cannot remember a hotter day, and we were marching through a
+thickly-populated mining district--the villages were uncomfortably like
+those round Dour. The people were enthusiastic and generous with their
+fruit and with their chocolate. It was very tiring work, because we were
+compelled to ride with the Staff, for first one of us was needed and
+then another to take messages up and down the column or across country
+to brigades and divisions that were advancing along roads parallel to
+ours. The old Division was making barely one mile an hour. The road was
+blocked by French transport coming in the opposite direction, by 'buses
+drawn up at the side of the road, and by cavalry that, trekking from the
+Aisne, crossed our front continuously to take up their position away on
+the left.
+
+At last, about three o'clock in the afternoon, we reached the outskirts
+of Béthune. The sound of the guns was very near, and to the east of the
+town we could see an aeroplane haloed in bursting shrapnel.
+
+The Staff took refuge first in an unsavoury field and afterwards in a
+little house. Despatch after despatch until evening--and then, ordered
+to remain behind to direct others, and cheered by the sight of our most
+revered and most short-sighted staff-officer walking straight over a
+little bridge into a deep, muddy, and stinking ditch, I took refuge in
+the kitchen and experienced the discreeter pleasures of "the Force." The
+handmaidens brought coffee, and brushed me and washed me and talked to
+me. I was sorry when the time came for me to resume my beat, or rather
+to ride with Cecil after the Division.
+
+We passed some Turcos, happy-looking children but ill companions in a
+hostile country, and some Spahis with flowing burnous, who looked
+ridiculously out of place, and then, after a long search--it was dark on
+the road and very cold--we found the Division.
+
+I dined off a maconochie, and was wondering whether I dare lie down to
+sleep, when I was called out to take a message to and remain at the 13th
+Brigade. It was a bad night. Never was a man so cold in his life, and
+the brigade had taken up its quarters in a farm situated in the centre
+of a very labyrinth of country roads. But I had four hours' sleep when I
+got there, while the others were up all the night.
+
+There was no hurry in the morning. The orders were to join the Division
+at a bridge just outside Béthune, a point which they could not possibly
+reach before ten. So I got up late and had a glorious meal of soup,
+omelette, and fruit in the town, waited on by a most excellent flapper
+who wanted to know everything about everything. I reported at the Signal
+Office, then occupying the lodge of the town cemetery, and was sent off
+to catch the Devons. At the village where I waited for them I found some
+Cuirassiers, genial fellows; but living helios in the burning sun. When
+I returned the Division had moved along the north bank of the Canal to
+Beuvry Station. The post picked us up, and in the joyous possession of
+two parcels and some letters I unpacked my kit. We all settled down on
+some moderately clean straw in the waiting-room of the station, and
+there we remained for three full weeks.
+
+Men talk of the battle of Ypres[15] as the finest achievement of the
+British Army. There was one brigade there that had a past. It had fought
+at Mons and Le Cateau, and then plugged away cheerfully through the
+Retreat and the Advance. What was left of it had fought stiffly on the
+Aisne. Some hard marching, a train journey, more hard marching, and it
+was thrown into action at La Bassée. There it fought itself to a
+standstill. It was attacked and attacked until, shattered, it was
+driven back one wild night. It was rallied, and turning on the enemy
+held them. More hard marching--a couple of days' rest, and it staggered
+into action at Ypres, and somehow--no one knows how--it held its bit of
+line. A brigade called by the same name, consisting of the same
+regiments, commanded by the same general, but containing scarce a man of
+those who had come out in August, marched very proudly away from Ypres
+and went--not to rest--but to hold another bit of the line.
+
+And this brigade was not the Guards Brigade. There were no picked men in
+the brigade. It contained just four ordinary regiments of the line--the
+Norfolks, the Bedfords, the Cheshires, and the Dorsets. What the 15th
+Brigade did, other brigades have done.
+
+Now little has been heard of this fighting round La Bassée in October,
+so I wish I could tell you about it in more detail than I can. To my
+thinking it was the finest fighting I have seen.
+
+You will understand, then, how difficult it is for me to describe the
+country round La Bassée. I might describe it as it appeared to me when
+first we arrived--sunny and joyous, with many little farms and thick
+hedges and rare factories--or as I saw it last, on a horrible yellowish
+evening, shattered and black and flooded and full of ghosts.
+
+Now when first we arrived news filtered through to us that La Bassée was
+held only by a division of Jägers, plentifully supplied with artillery
+and machine guns. I believe this was the fact. The Jägers held on
+stubbornly until reinforcements came up. Instead of attacking we were
+hard pressed, and had more than we could do to prevent the Germans in
+their turn from breaking through. Indeed we had not a kick left in us
+when the Division was relieved.
+
+At the beginning it looked so simple. The British Army was wheeling
+round on to the German right flank. We had the shortest distance to go,
+because we formed the extreme British right. On our left was the 3rd
+Division, and beyond the 3rd was the First Corps. On the left of the
+First the Third Corps was sweeping on to Armentières.
+
+Then Antwerp fell suddenly. The First Corps was rushed up to help the
+Seventh Division which was trying to guard the right flank of the
+Belgians in retirement along the coast. Thus some sort of very weak line
+was formed from the sea to La Bassée. The Germans, reinforced by the
+men, and more particularly by the guns that the fall of Antwerp had let
+loose, attacked violently at Ypres and La Bassée. I do not say this is
+what really happened. I am trying to tell you what we thought was
+happening.
+
+Think of us, then, in the heat of early October going into action on the
+left of the French, confident that we had just a little opposition to
+brush away in front of us before we concentrated in the square at La
+Bassée.
+
+At first the 13th Brigade was put into position south of the canal, the
+15th Brigade attacked from the canal to the La Bassée-Estaires road, and
+the 14th from the main road roughly to the Richebourgs. In the second
+stage the French extended their line to the Canal, and the 13th became a
+reserve brigade. In the third stage we had every man in the line--the
+13th Brigade being split up between the 14th and 15th, and the French
+sent two battalions to the north bank of the canal.
+
+The work of the despatch riders was of two kinds. Three-quarters of us
+rode between the divisional and the brigade headquarters. The rest were
+attached to the brigades, and either used for miscellaneous work or held
+in reserve so that communication might not be broken if the wires were
+cut or smashed by shells.
+
+One motor-cyclist went out every day to Lieutenant Chapman, who was
+acting as liaison officer with the French. This job never fell to my
+lot, but I am told it was exciting enough. The French general was an
+intrepid old fellow, who believed that a general should be near his
+fighting men. So his headquarters were always being shelled. Then he
+would not retire, but preferred to descend into the cellar until the
+evil times were overpast.
+
+The despatch rider with Chapman had his bellyful of shells. It was
+pleasant to sit calmly in a cellar and receive food at the hands of an
+accomplished _chef_, and in more peaceful times there was opportunity to
+study the idiosyncrasies of German gunners and the peculiar merits of
+the Soixante-Quinze. But when the shelling was hottest there was usually
+work for the despatch rider--and getting away from the unhealthy area
+before scooting down the Annequin road was a heart-thumping job.
+
+French generals were always considerate and hospitable to us despatch
+riders. On our arrival at Béthune Huggie was sent off with a message to
+a certain French Corps Commander. The General received him with a proper
+French embrace, congratulated him on our English bravery, and set him
+down to some food and a glass of good wine.
+
+It was at La Bassée that we had our first experience of utterly
+unrideable roads. North of the canal the roads were fair macadam in dry
+weather and to the south the main road Béthune-Beuvry-Annequin was of
+the finest pavé. Then it rained hard. First the roads became greasy
+beyond belief. Starting was perilous, and the slightest injudicious
+swerve meant a bad skid. Between Gorre and Festubert the road was vile.
+It went on raining, and the roads were thickly covered with glutinous
+mud. The front mud-guard of George's Douglas choked up with a lamentable
+frequency. The Blackburne alone, the finest and most even-running of all
+motor-cycles,[16] ran with unswerving regularity.
+
+Finally, to our heartburning sorrow, there were nights on which
+motor-cycling became impossible, and we stayed restlessly at home while
+men on the despised horse carried our despatches. This we could not
+allow for long. Soon we became so skilled that, if I remember correctly,
+it was only on half a dozen nights in all right through the winter that
+the horsemen were required.
+
+It was at La Bassée too that we had our second casualty. A despatch
+rider whom we called "Moulders" came in one evening full of triumph. A
+bullet had just grazed his leg and the Government was compelled to
+provide him with a new puttee. We were jealous, and he was proud.
+
+We slept in that room which was no room, the entrance-hall of Beuvry
+Station. It was small and crowded. The floor was covered with straw
+which we could not renew. After the first fortnight the population of
+this chamber increased rapidly; one or two of us spoke of himself
+hereafter in the plural. They gave far less trouble than we had
+expected, and, though always with some of us until the spring, suffered
+heavy casualties from the use of copious petrol and the baking of washed
+shirts in the village oven.
+
+We had been given a cook of our own. He was a youth of dreamy habits and
+acquisitive tastes, but sometimes made a good stew. Each one of us
+thought he himself was talented beyond the ordinary, so the cook never
+wanted assistance--except perhaps in the preparing of breakfast. Food
+was good and plentiful, while the monotony of army rations was broken by
+supplies from home and from Béthune. George, thank heaven, was still
+with us.
+
+Across the bridge was a shop where you could buy anything from a pair of
+boots to a kilo of vermicelli. Those of us who were not on duty would
+wander in about eleven in the morning, drink multitudinous bowls of
+coffee at two sous the bowl, and pass the time of day with some of the
+cyclists who were billeted in the big brewery. Just down the road was a
+tavern where infernal cognac could be got and occasionally good red
+wine.
+
+Even when there was little to do, the station was not dull. French
+hussars, dainty men with thin and graceful horses, rode over the bridge
+and along the canal every morning. Cuirassiers would clatter and swagger
+by--and guns, both French and English. Behind the station much
+ammunition was stored, a source of keen pleasure if ever the Germans had
+attempted to shell the station. It was well within range. During the
+last week His Majesty's armoured train, "Jellicoe," painted in wondrous
+colours, would rumble in and on towards La Bassée. The crew were full of
+Antwerp tales and late newspapers. The first time the train went into
+action it demolished a German battery, but afterwards it had little
+luck.
+
+The corps was at Hinges. If work were slack and the Signal Sergeant
+were kind, he would give one of us a bunch of messages for the corps,
+with the hint that the return might be made at leisure. Between Hinges
+and Beuvry lay Béthune. Hinges deserves a word.
+
+When first the corps came to Hinges, the inhabitants were exalted. The
+small boys came out in puttees and the women put ribbons in their hair.
+Now, if you pronounce Hinges in the French fashion, you give forth an
+exclamation of distressful pain. The name cannot be shouted from a
+motor-cycle. It has its difficulties even for the student of French. So
+we all called it, plainly and bluntly, Hinges, as though it were
+connected to a door. The inhabitants noticed this. Thinking that they
+and their forefathers had been wrong--for surely these fine men with red
+hats knew better than they--the English pronunciation spread. The
+village became 'Ingees, and now only some unfashionable dotards in
+Béthune preserve the tradition of the old pronunciation. It is not only
+Hinges that has been thus decently attired in British garb. Le Cateau is
+Lee Catòo. Boescheppe is Bo-peep. Ouderdon is Eiderdown.
+
+Béthune was full of simple pleasures. First there were the public baths,
+cheap and good, and sundry coiffeurs who were much in demand, for they
+made you smell sweetly. Then there was a little blue and white café. The
+daughter of the house was well-favoured and played the piano with some
+skill. One of us spent all his spare time at this café in silent
+adoration--of the piano, for his French was exiguous in the extreme.
+There was a patisserie crammed full of the most delicious cream-cakes.
+The despatch rider who went to Hinges about 3.30 P.M. and did not return
+with cakes for tea, found life unpleasant. Near the station three
+damsels ruled a tavern. They were friendly and eager to teach us French.
+We might have left them with a sigh of regret if we had not once arrived
+as they were eating their midday meal.
+
+At one time the Germans dropped a few shells into Béthune, but did
+little damage. Bombs fell too. One nearly ended the existence of
+"Sadders"--also known as "Boo." It dropped on the other side of the
+street; doing our despatch rider no damage, it slightly wounded Sergeant
+Croucher of the Cyclists in a portion of his body that made him swear
+when he was classed as a "sitting-up case."
+
+Of all the towns behind the lines--Béthune, Estaires, Armentières,
+Bailleul, Poperinghe--Béthune is the pleasantest. The people are
+charming. There is nothing you cannot buy there. It is clean and
+well-ordered, and cheerful in the rain. I pray that Béthune may survive
+the war--that after peace has been declared and Berlin has been entered,
+I may spend a week there and much money to the profit of the people and
+the satisfaction of myself.
+
+Now I will give some account of our adventures out with the brigades
+round La Bassée.
+
+[Illustration: ROUND LA BASSÉE]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] The first--in October and November.
+
+[16] This is not an unthinking advertisement. After despatch riding from
+August 16 to February 18 my judgment should be worth something. I am
+firmly convinced that if the Government could have provided all despatch
+riders with Blackburnes, the percentage--at all times small--of messages
+undelivered owing to mechanical breakdowns or the badness of the roads
+would have been reduced to zero. I have no interest in the Blackburne
+Company beyond a sincere admiration of the machine it produces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ROUND LA BASSÉE.
+
+
+It had been a melancholy day, full of rain and doubting news. Those of
+us who were not "out" were strolling up and down the platform arranging
+the order of cakes from home and trying to gather from the sound of the
+gunning and intermittent visits to the Signal Office what was happening.
+
+Someone had been told that the old 15th was being hard pressed. Each of
+us regretted loudly that we had not been attached to it, though our
+hearts spoke differently. Despatch riders have muddled thoughts. There
+is a longing for the excitement of danger and a very earnest desire to
+keep away from it.
+
+The C.O. walked on to the platform hurriedly, and in a minute or two I
+was off. It was lucky that the road was covered with unholy grease, that
+the light was bad and there was transport on the road--for it is not
+good for a despatch rider to think too much of what is before him. My
+instructions were to report to the general and make myself useful. I was
+also cheerfully informed that the H.Q. of the 15th were under a robust
+shell-fire. Little parties of sad-looking wounded that I passed, the
+noise of the guns, and the evil dusk heartened me.
+
+I rode into Festubert, which was full of noise, and, very hastily
+dismounting, put my motor-cycle under the cover of an arch and reported
+to the general. He was sitting at a table in the stuffy room of a
+particularly dirty tavern. At the far end a fat and frightened woman was
+crooning to her child. Beside her sat a wrinkled, leathery old man with
+bandaged head. He had wandered into the street, and he had been cut
+about by shrapnel. The few wits he had ever possessed were gone, and he
+gave every few seconds little croaks of hate. Three telephone operators
+were working with strained faces at their highest speed. The windows had
+been smashed by shrapnel, and bits of glass and things crunched under
+foot. The room was full of noises--the crackle of the telephones, the
+crooning of the woman, the croak of the wounded old man, the clear and
+incisive tones of the general and his brigade-major, the rattle of not
+too distant rifles, the booming of guns and occasionally the terrific,
+overwhelming crash of a shell bursting in the village.
+
+I was given a glass of wine. Cadell, the Brigade Signal Officer, and the
+Veterinary Officer, came up to me and talked cheerfully in whispered
+tones about our friends.
+
+There was the sharp cry of shrapnel in the street and a sudden rattle
+against the whole house. The woman and child fled somewhere through a
+door, followed feebly by the old man. The brigade-major persuaded the
+general to work in some less unhealthy place. The telephone operators
+moved. A moment's delay as the general endeavoured to persuade the
+brigade-major to go first, and we found ourselves under a stalwart arch
+that led into the courtyard of the tavern. We lit pipes and cigarettes.
+The crashes of bursting shells grew more frequent, and the general
+remarked in a dry and injured tone--
+
+"Their usual little evening shoot before putting up the shutters, I
+suppose."
+
+But first the Germans "searched" the village. Now to search a village
+means to start at one end of the village and place shells at discreet
+intervals until the other end of the village is reached. It is an
+unpleasant process for those in the middle of the village, even though
+they be standing, as we were, in comparatively good shelter.
+
+We heard the Germans start at the other end of the village street. The
+crashes came nearer and nearer, until a shell burst with a scream and a
+thunderous roar just on our right. We puffed away at our cigarettes for
+a second, and a certain despatch rider wished he were anywhere but in
+the cursed village of Festubert by Béthune. There was another scream and
+overwhelming relief. The next shell burst three houses away on our left.
+I knocked my pipe out and filled another.
+
+The Germans finished their little evening shoot. We marched back very
+slowly in the darkness to 1910 Farm.
+
+This farm was neither savoury nor safe. It was built round a courtyard
+which consisted of a gigantic hole crammed with manure in all the stages
+of unpleasant putrefaction. One side is a barn; two sides consist of
+stables, and the third is the house inhabited not only by us but by an
+incredibly filthy and stinking old woman who was continually troubling
+the general because some months ago a French cuirassier took one of her
+chickens. The day after we arrived at this farm I had few despatches to
+take, so I wrote to Robert. Here is some of the letter and bits of
+other letters I wrote during the following days. They will give you an
+idea of our state of mind:[17]
+
+If you want something of the dramatic--I am writing in a farm under
+shrapnel fire, smoking a pipe that was broken by a shell. For true
+effect I suppose I should not tell you that the shrapnel is bursting
+about fifty yards the other side of the house, that I am in a room lying
+on the floor, and consequently that, so long as they go on firing
+shrapnel, I am perfectly safe.
+
+It's the dismallest of places. Two miles farther back the heavies are
+banging away over our heads. There are a couple of batteries near the
+farm. Two miles along the road the four battalions of our brigade are
+holding on for dear life in their trenches.
+
+The country is open plough, with little clumps of trees, sparse hedges,
+and isolated cottages giving a precarious cover. It's all very damp and
+miserable, for it was raining hard last night and the day before.
+
+I am in a little bare room with the floor covered with straw. Two
+telegraph operators are making that infernal jerky clicking sound I have
+begun so to hate. Half a dozen men of the signal staff are lying about
+the floor looking at week-old papers. In the next room I can hear the
+general, seated at a table and intent on his map, talking to an officer
+that has just come from the firing line. Outside the window a gun is
+making a fiendish row, shaking the whole house. Occasionally there is a
+bit of a rattle--that's shrapnel bullets falling on the tiles of an
+outhouse.
+
+If you came out you might probably find this exhilarating. I have just
+had a talk with our mutual friend Cadell, the Signal Officer of this
+brigade, and we have decided that we are fed up with it. For one
+thing--after two months' experience of shell fire the sound of a shell
+bursting within measurable distance makes you start and shiver for a
+moment--reflex action of the nerves. That is annoying. We both decided
+we would willingly change places with you and take a turn at defending
+your doubtless excellently executed trenches at Liberton.
+
+The line to the ----[18] has just gone. It's almost certain death to
+relay it in the day-time. Cadell and his men are discussing the chances
+while somebody else has started a musical-box. A man has gone out; I
+wonder if he will come back. The rest of the men have gone to sleep
+again. That gun outside the window is getting on my nerves. Well, well!
+
+The shrapnel fire appears to have stopped for the present. No, there's a
+couple together. If they fire over this farm I hope they don't send me
+back to D.H.Q.
+
+Do you know what I long for more than anything else? A clean, unhurried
+breakfast with spotless napery and shining silver and porridge and
+kippers. I don't think these long, lazy after-breakfast hours at Oxford
+were wasted. They are a memory and a hope out here. The shrapnel is
+getting nearer and more frequent. We are all hoping it will kill some
+chickens in the courtyard. The laws against looting are so strict.
+
+What an excellent musical-box, playing quite a good imitation of
+_Cavalleria Rusticana_. I guess we shall have to move soon. Too many
+shells. Too dark to write any more----
+
+After all, quite the most important things out here are a fine meal and
+a good bath. If you consider the vast area of the war the facts that we
+have lost two guns or advanced five miles are of very little importance.
+War, making one realise the hopeless insignificance of the individual,
+creates in one such an immense regard for self, that so long as one
+does well it matters little if four officers have been killed
+reconnoitring or some wounded have had to be left under an abandoned gun
+all night. I started with an immense interest in tactics. This has
+nearly all left me and I remain a more or less efficient
+despatch-carrying animal--a part of a machine realising the hopeless,
+enormous size of the machine.
+
+The infantry officer after two months of modern war is a curious
+phenomenon.[19] He is probably one of three survivors of an original
+twenty-eight. He is not frightened of being killed; he has forgotten to
+think about it. But there is a sort of reflex fright. He becomes either
+cautious and liable to sudden panics, or very rash indeed, or absolutely
+mechanical in his actions. The first state means the approach of a
+nervous breakdown, the second a near death. There are very few, indeed,
+who retain a nervous balance and a calm judgment. And all have a harsh
+frightened voice. If you came suddenly out here, you would think they
+were all mortally afraid. But it is only giving orders for hours
+together under a heavy fire.
+
+Battle noises are terrific. At the present moment a howitzer is going
+strong behind this, and the concussion is tremendous. The noise is like
+dropping a traction-engine on a huge tin tray. A shell passing away from
+you over your head is like the loud crackling of a newspaper close to
+your ear. It makes a sort of deep reverberating crackle in the air,
+gradually lessening, until there is a dull boom, and a mile or so away
+you see a thick little cloud of white smoke in the air or a pear-shaped
+cloud of grey-black smoke on the ground. Coming towards you a shell
+makes a cutting, swishing note, gradually getting higher and higher,
+louder and louder. There is a longer note one instant and then it
+ceases. Shrapnel bursting close to you has the worst sound.
+
+It is almost funny in a village that is being shelled. Things simply
+disappear. You are standing in an archway a little back from the road--a
+shriek of shrapnel. The windows are broken and the tiles rush clattering
+into the street, while little bullets and bits of shell jump like
+red-hot devils from side to side of the street, ricochetting until their
+force is spent. Or a deeper bang, a crash, and a whole house tumbles
+down.
+
+_3/4-hour later._--Curious life this. Just after I had finished the last
+sentence, I was called out to take a message to a battery telling them
+to shell a certain village. Here am I wandering out, taking orders for
+the complete destruction of a village and probably for the death of a
+couple of hundred men[20] without a thought, except that the roads are
+very greasy and that lunch time is near.
+
+Again, yesterday, I put our Heavies in action, and in a quarter of an
+hour a fine old church, with what appeared from the distance a
+magnificent tower, was nothing but a grotesque heap of ruins. The
+Germans were loopholing it for defence.
+
+Oh the waste, the utter damnable waste of everything out here--men,
+horses, buildings, cars, everything. Those who talk about war being a
+salutary discipline are those who remain at home. In a modern war there
+is little room for picturesque gallantry or picture-book heroism. We are
+all either animals or machines, with little gained except our emotions
+dulled and brutalised and nightmare flashes of scenes that cannot be
+written about because they are unbelievable. I wonder what difference
+you will find in us when we come home----
+
+Do you know what a night scare is? In our last H.Q. we were all dining
+when suddenly there was a terrific outburst of rifle-fire from our
+lines. We went out into the road that passes the farm and stood there
+in the pitch darkness, wondering. The fire increased in intensity until
+every soldier within five miles seemed to be revelling in a lunatic
+succession of "mad minutes." Was it a heavy attack on our lines? Soon
+pom-poms joined in sharp, heavy taps--and machine guns. The lines to the
+battalions were at the moment working feebly, and what the operators
+could get through was scarcely intelligible. Ammunition limbers were
+hurried up, and I stood ready to dart anywhere. For twenty minutes the
+rifle-fire seemed to grow wilder and wilder. At last stretcher-bearers
+came in with a few wounded and reported that we seemed to be holding our
+own. Satisfactory so far. Then there were great flashes of shrapnel over
+our lines; that comforted us, for if your troops are advancing you don't
+fire shrapnel over the enemy's lines. You never know how soon they may
+be yours. The firing soon died down until we heard nothing but little
+desultory bursts. Finally an orderly came--the Germans had
+half-heartedly charged our trenches but had been driven off with loss.
+We returned to the farm and found that in the few minutes we had been
+outside everything had been packed and half-frightened men were standing
+about for orders.
+
+The explanation of it all came later and was simple enough. The French,
+without letting us know, had attacked the Germans on our right, and the
+Germans to keep us engaged had made a feint attack upon us. So we went
+back to dinner.
+
+In modern war the infantryman hasn't much of a chance. Strategy nowadays
+consists in arranging for the mutual slaughter of infantry by the
+opposing guns, each general trusting that his guns will do the greater
+slaughter. And half gunnery is luck. The day before yesterday we had a
+little afternoon shoot at where we thought the German trenches might be.
+The Germans unaccountably retreated, and yesterday when we advanced we
+found the trenches crammed full of dead. By a combination of intelligent
+anticipation and good luck we had hit them exactly----
+
+From these letters you will be able to gather what mood we were in and
+something of what the brigade despatch rider was doing. After the first
+day the Germans ceased shrapnelling the fields round the farm and left
+us nearly in peace. There I met Major Ballard, commanding the 15th
+Artillery Brigade, one of the finest officers of my acquaintance, and
+Captain Frost, the sole remaining officer of the Cheshires. He was
+charming to me; I was particularly grateful for the loan of a razor,
+for my own had disappeared and there were no despatch riders handy from
+whom I could borrow.
+
+Talking of the Cheshires reminds me of a story illustrating the troubles
+of a brigadier. The general was dining calmly one night after having
+arranged an attack. All orders had been sent out. Everything was
+complete and ready. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and in walked
+Captain M----, who reported his arrival with 200 reinforcements for the
+Cheshires, a pleasant but irritating addition. The situation was further
+complicated by the general's discovery that M---- was senior to the
+officer then in command of the Cheshires. Poor M---- was not left long
+in command. A fortnight later the Germans broke through and over the
+Cheshires, and M---- died where a commanding officer should.
+
+From 1910 Farm I had one good ride to the battalions, through Festubert
+and along to the Cuinchy bridge. For me it was interesting because it
+was one of the few times I had ridden just behind our trenches, which at
+the moment were just north of the road and were occupied by the
+Bedfords.
+
+In a day or two we returned to Festubert, and Cadell gave me a
+shake-down on a mattress in his billet--gloriously comfortable. The room
+was a little draughty because the fuse of a shrapnel had gone right
+through the door and the fireplace opposite. Except for a peppering on
+the walls and some broken glass the house was not damaged; we almost
+laughed at the father and mother and daughter who, returning while we
+were there, wept because their home had been touched.
+
+Orders came to attack. A beautiful plan was drawn up by which the
+battalions of the brigade were to finish their victorious career in the
+square of La Bassée.
+
+In connection with this attack I was sent with a message for the Devons.
+It was the blackest of black nights and I was riding without a light.
+Twice I ran into the ditch, and finally I piled up myself and my bicycle
+on a heap of stones lying by the side of the road. I did not damage my
+bicycle. That was enough. I left it and walked.
+
+When I got to Cuinchy bridge I found that the Devon headquarters had
+shifted. Beyond that the sentry knew nothing. Luckily I met a Devon
+officer who was bringing up ammunition. We searched the surrounding
+cottages for men with knowledge, and at last discovered that the Devons
+had moved farther along the canal in the direction of La Bassée. So we
+set out along the tow-path, past a house that was burning fiercely
+enough to make us conspicuous.
+
+We felt our way about a quarter of a mile and stopped, because we were
+getting near the Germans. Indeed we could hear the rumble of their
+transport crossing the La Bassée bridge. We turned back, and a few yards
+nearer home some one coughed high up the bank on our right. We found the
+cough to be a sentry, and behind the sentry were the Devons.
+
+The attack, as you know, was held up on the line
+Cuinchy-Givenchy-Violaines; we advanced our headquarters to a house just
+opposite the inn by which the road to Givenchy turns off. It was not
+very safe, but the only shell that burst anywhere near the house itself
+did nothing but wound a little girl in the leg.
+
+On the previous day I had ridden to Violaines at dawn to draw a plan of
+the Cheshires' trenches for the general. I strolled out by the sugar
+factory, and had a good look at the red houses of La Bassée. Half an
+hour later a patrol went out to explore the sugar factory. They did not
+return. It seems that the factory was full of machine-guns. I had not
+been fired upon, because the Germans did not wish to give their position
+away sooner than was necessary.
+
+A day or two later I had the happiness of avenging my potential death.
+First I took orders to a battery of 6-inch howitzers at the Rue de
+Marais to knock the factory to pieces, then I carried an observing
+officer to some haystacks by Violaines, from which he could get a good
+view of the factory. Finally I watched with supreme satisfaction the
+demolition of the factory, and with regretful joy the slaughter of the
+few Germans who, escaping, scuttled for shelter in some trenches just
+behind and on either side of the factory.
+
+I left the 15th Brigade with regret, and the regret I felt would have
+been deeper if I had known what was going to happen to the brigade. I
+was given interesting work and made comfortable. No despatch rider could
+wish for more.
+
+Not long after I had returned from the 15th Brigade, the Germans
+attacked and broke through. They had been heavily reinforced and our
+tentative offensive had been replaced by a stern and anxious defensive.
+
+Now the Signal Office was established in the booking-office of Beuvry
+Station. The little narrow room was packed full of operators and vibrant
+with buzz and click. The Signal Clerk sat at a table in a tiny room just
+off the booking-office. Orderlies would rush in with messages, and the
+Clerk would instantly decide whether to send them over the wire, by
+push-cyclist, or by despatch rider. Again, he dealt with all messages
+that came in over the wire. Copies of these messages were filed. This
+was our tape; from them we learned the news. We were not supposed to
+read them, but, as we often found that they contained information which
+was invaluable to despatch riders, we always looked through them and
+each passed on what he had found to the others. The Signal Clerk might
+not know where a certain unit was at a given moment. We knew, because we
+had put together information that we had gathered in the course of our
+rides and information which--though the Clerk might think it
+unimportant--supplemented or completed or verified what we had already
+obtained.
+
+So the history of this partially successful attack was known to us.
+Every few minutes one of us went into the Signal Office and read the
+messages. When the order came for us to pack up, we had already made our
+preparations, for Divisional Headquarters, the brain controlling the
+actions of seventeen thousand men, must never be left in a position of
+danger. And wounded were pouring into the Field Ambulances.
+
+The enemy had made a violent attack, preluded by heavy shelling, on the
+left of the 15th, and what I think was a holding attack on the right.
+Violaines had been stormed, and the Cheshires had been driven, still
+grimly fighting, to beyond the Rue de Marais. The Norfolks on their
+right and the K.O.S.B.'s on their left had been compelled to draw back
+their line with heavy loss, for their flanks had been uncovered by the
+retreat of the Cheshires.
+
+The Germans stopped a moment to consolidate their gains. This gave us
+time to throw a couple of battalions against them. After desperate
+fighting Rue de Marais was retaken and some sort of line established.
+What was left of the Cheshires gradually rallied in Festubert.
+
+This German success, together with a later success against the 3rd
+Division, that resulted in our evacuation of Neuve Chapelle, compelled
+us to withdraw and readjust our line. This second line was not so
+defensible as the first. Until we were relieved the Germans battered at
+it with gunnery all day and attacks all night. How we managed to hold it
+is utterly beyond my understanding. The men were dog-tired. Few of the
+old officers were left, and they were "done to the world." Never did the
+Fighting Fifth more deserve the name. It fought dully and instinctively,
+like a boxer who, after receiving heavy punishment, just manages to keep
+himself from being knocked out until the call of time.
+
+Yet, when they had dragged themselves wearily and blindly out of the
+trenches, the fighting men of the Fighting Fifth were given but a day's
+rest or two before the 15th and two battalions of the 13th were sent to
+Hooge, and the remainder to hold sectors of the line farther south. Can
+you wonder that we despatch riders, in comparative safety behind the
+line, did all we could to help the most glorious and amazing infantry
+that the world has ever seen?[21] And when you praise the deeds of Ypres
+of the First Corps, who had experienced no La Bassée, spare a word for
+the men of the Fighting Fifth who thought they could fight no more and
+yet fought.
+
+A few days after I had returned from the 15th Brigade I was sent out to
+the 14th. I found them at the Estaminet de l'Epinette on the
+Béthune-Richebourg road. Headquarters had been compelled to shift,
+hastily enough, from the Estaminet de La Bombe on the La Bassée-Estaires
+road. The estaminet had been shelled to destruction half an hour after
+the Brigade had moved. The Estaminet de l'Epinette was filthy and small.
+I slept in a stinking barn, half-full of dirty straw, and rose with the
+sun for the discomfort of it.
+
+Opposite the estaminet a road goes to Festubert. At the corner there is
+a cluster of dishevelled houses. I sat at the door and wrote letters,
+and looked for what might come to pass. In the early dawn the poplars
+alongside the highway were grey and dull. There was mist on the road;
+the leaves that lay thick were black. Then as the sun rose higher the
+poplars began to glisten and the mist rolled away, and the leaves were
+red and brown.
+
+An old woman came up the road and prayed the sentry to let her pass. He
+could not understand her and called to me. She told me that her family
+were in the house at the corner fifty yards distant. I replied that she
+could not go to them--that they, if they were content not to return,
+might come to her. But the family would not leave their chickens, and
+cows, and corn. So the old woman, who was tired, sank down by the
+wayside and wept. This sorrow was no sorrow to the sorrow of the war. I
+left the old woman, the sentry, and the family, and went into a fine
+breakfast.
+
+At this time there was much talk about spies. Our wires were often cut
+mysteriously. A sergeant had been set upon in a lane. The enemy were
+finding our guns with uncanny accuracy. All our movements seemed to be
+anticipated by the enemy. Taking for granted the extraordinary
+efficiency of the German Intelligence Corps, we were particularly
+nervous about spies when the Division was worn out, when things were not
+going well.
+
+At the Estaminet de l'Epinette I heard a certain story, and hearing it
+set about to make a fool of myself. This is the story--I have never
+heard it substantiated, and give it as an illustration and not as fact.
+
+There was once an artillery brigade billeted in a house two miles or so
+behind the lines. All the inhabitants of the house had fled, for the
+village had been heavily bombarded. Only a girl had had the courage to
+remain and do hostess to the English. She was so fresh and so charming,
+so clever in her cookery, and so modest in her demeanour that all the
+men of the brigade headquarters fell madly in love with her. They even
+quarrelled. Now this brigade was suffering much from espionage. The guns
+could not be moved without the Germans knowing their new position. No
+transport or ammunition limbers were safe from the enemy's guns. The
+brigade grew mightily indignant. The girl was told by her numerous
+sweethearts what was the matter. She was angry and sympathetic, and
+swore that through her the spy should be discovered. She swore the
+truth.
+
+One night a certain lewd fellow of the baser sort pursued the girl with
+importunate pleadings. She confessed that she liked him, but not in that
+way. He left her and stood sullenly by the door. The girl took a pail
+and went down into the cellar to fetch up a little coal, telling the man
+with gentle mockery not to be so foolish. This angered him, and in a
+minute he had rushed after her into the cellar, snorting with
+disappointed passion. Of course he slipped on the stairs and fell with a
+crash. The girl screamed. The fellow, his knee bruised, tried to feel
+his way to the bottom of the stairs and touched a wire. Quickly running
+his hand along the wire he came to a telephone. The girl rushed to him,
+and, clasping his knees, offered him anything he might wish, if only he
+would say nothing. I think he must have hesitated for a moment, but he
+did not hesitate long. The girl was shot.
+
+Full of this suspiciously melodramatic story I caught sight of a
+mysterious document fastened by nails to the house opposite the inn. It
+was covered with coloured signs which, whatever they were, certainly did
+not form letters or make sense in any way. I examined the document
+closely. One sign looked like an aeroplane, another like a house, a
+third like the rough drawing of a wood. I took it to a certain officer,
+who agreed with me that it appeared suspicious.
+
+We carried it to the staff-captain, who pointed out very forcibly that
+it had been raining lately, that colour ran, that the signs left formed
+portions of letters. I demanded the owner of the house upon which the
+document had been posted. She was frightened and almost unintelligible,
+but supplied the missing fragments. The document was a crude election
+appeal. Being interpreted it read something like this:--
+
+     SUPPORT LEFÈVRE. HE IS NOT A LIAR LIKE DUBOIS.
+
+Talking of spies, here is another story. It is true.
+
+Certain wires were always being cut. At length a patrol was organised.
+While the operator was talking there was a little click and no further
+acknowledgment from the other end. The patrol started out and caught the
+man in the act of cutting a second wire. He said nothing.
+
+He was brought before the Mayor. Evidence was briefly given of his
+guilt. He made no protest. It was stated that he had been born in the
+village. The Mayor turned to the man and said--
+
+"You are a traitor. It is clear. Have you anything to say?"
+
+The man stood white and straight. Then he bowed his head and made
+answer--
+
+"Priez pour moi."
+
+That was no defence. So they led him away.
+
+The morning after I arrived at the 14th the Germans concentrated their
+fire on a large turnip-field and exhumed multitudinous turnips. No
+further damage was done, but the field was unhealthily near the
+Estaminet de l'Epinette. In the afternoon we moved our headquarters back
+a mile or so to a commodious and moderately clean farm with a
+forgettable name.
+
+That evening two prisoners were brought in. They owned to eighteen, but
+did not look more than sixteen. The guard treated them with kindly
+contempt. We all sat round a makeshift table in the loft where we slept
+and told each other stories of fighting and love and fear, while the
+boys, squatting a little distance away, listened and looked at us in
+wonder. I came in from a ride about one in the morning and found those
+of the guard who were off duty and the two German boys sleeping side by
+side. Literally it was criminal negligence--some one ought to have been
+awake--but, when I saw one of the boys was clasping tightly a packet of
+woodbines, I called it something else and went to sleep.
+
+A day or two later I was relieved. On the following afternoon I was sent
+to Estaires to bring back some details about the Lahore Division which
+had just arrived on the line. I had, of course, seen Spahis and Turcos
+and Senegalese, but when riding through Lestrem I saw these Indian
+troops of ours the obvious thoughts tumbled over one another.
+
+We despatch riders when first we met the Indians wondered how they would
+fight, how they would stand shell-fire and the climate--but chiefly we
+were filled with a sort of mental helplessness, riding among people when
+we could not even vaguely guess at what they were thinking. We could get
+no deeper than their appearance, dignified and clean and well-behaved.
+
+In a few days I was back again at the 14th with Huggie. At dusk the
+General went out in his car to a certain village about three miles
+distant. Huggie went with him. An hour or so, and I was sent after him
+with a despatch. The road was almost unrideable with the worst sort of
+grease, the night was pitch-black and I was allowed no light. I
+slithered along at about six miles an hour, sticking out my legs for a
+permanent scaffolding. Many troops were lying down at the side of the
+road. An officer in a strained voice just warned me in time for me to
+avoid a deep shell-hole by inches. I delivered my despatch to the
+General. Outside the house I found two or three officers I knew. Two of
+them were young captains in command of battalions. Then I learned how
+hard put to it the Division was, and what the result is of nervous
+strain.
+
+They had been fighting and fighting and fighting until their nerves were
+nothing but a jangling torture. And a counter-attack on Neuve Chapelle
+was being organised. Huggie told me afterwards that when the car had
+come along the road, all the men had jumped like startled animals and a
+few had turned to take cover. Why, if a child had met one of these men
+she would have taken him by the hand instinctively and told him not to
+be frightened, and defended him against anything that came. Yet it is
+said there are still those at home who will not stir to help. I do not
+see how this can possibly be true. It could not be true.
+
+First we talked about the counter-attack, and which battalion would
+lead; then with a little manipulation we began to discuss musical comedy
+and the beauty of certain ladies. Again the talk would wander back to
+which battalion would lead.
+
+I returned perilously with a despatch and left Huggie, to spend a
+disturbed night and experience those curious sensations which are caused
+by a shell bursting just across the road from the house.
+
+The proposed attack was given up. If it had been carried out, those men
+would have fought as finely as they could. I do not know whether my
+admiration for the infantry or my hatred of war is the greater. I can
+express neither.
+
+On the following day the Brigadier moved to a farm farther north. It was
+the job of Huggie and myself to keep up communication between this farm
+and the brigade headquarters at the farm with the forgettable name. To
+ride four miles or so along country lanes from one farm to another does
+not sound particularly strenuous. It was. In the first place, the
+neighbourhood of the advanced farm was not healthy. The front gate was
+marked down by a sniper who fired not infrequently but a little high.
+Between the back gate and the main road was impassable mud. Again, the
+farm was only three-quarters of a mile behind our trenches, and "overs"
+went zipping through the farm buildings at all sorts of unexpected
+angles. There were German aeroplanes about, so we covered our stationary
+motor-cycles with straw.
+
+Starting from brigade headquarters the despatch rider in half a mile was
+forced to pass the transport of a Field Ambulance. The men seemed to
+take a perverted delight in wandering aimlessly and deafly across the
+road, and in leaving anything on the road which could conceivably
+obstruct or annoy a motor-cyclist. Then came two and a half miles of
+winding country lanes. They were covered with grease. Every corner was
+blind. A particularly sharp turn to the right and the despatch rider
+rode a couple of hundred yards in front of a battery in action that the
+Germans were trying to find. A "hairpin" corner round a house followed.
+This he would take with remarkable skill and alacrity, because at this
+corner he was always sniped. The German's rifle was trained a trifle
+high. Coming into the final straight the despatch rider or one despatch
+rider rode for all he was worth. It was unpleasant to find new
+shell-holes just off the road each time you passed, or, as you came into
+the straight, to hear the shriek of shrapnel between you and the farm.
+
+Huggie once arrived at the house of the "hairpin" bend simultaneously
+with a shell. The shell hit the house, the house did not hit Huggie, and
+the sniper forgot to snipe. So every one was pleased.
+
+On my last journey I passed a bunch of wounded Sikhs. They were
+clinging to all their kit. One man was wounded in both his feet. He was
+being carried by two of his fellows. In his hands he clutched his boots.
+
+The men did not know where to go or what to do. I could not make them
+understand, but I tried by gestures to show them where the ambulance
+was.
+
+I saw two others--they were slightly wounded--talking fiercely together.
+At last they grasped their rifles firmly, and swinging round, limped
+back towards the line.
+
+Huggie did most of the work that day, because during the greater part of
+the afternoon I was kept back at brigade headquarters.
+
+In the evening I went out in the car to fetch the general. The car,
+which was old but stout, had been left behind by the Germans. The driver
+of it was a reservist who had been taken from his battalion. Day and
+night he tended and coaxed that car. He tied it together when it fell to
+pieces. At all times and in all places he drove that car, for he had no
+wish at all to return to the trenches.
+
+On the following day Huggie and I were relieved. When we returned to our
+good old musty quarters at Beuvry men talked of a move. There were
+rumours of hard fighting in Ypres. Soon the Lahore Division came down
+towards our line and began to take over from us. The 14th Brigade was
+left to strengthen them. The 15th and 13th began to move north.
+
+Early on the morning of October 29 we started, riding first along the
+canal by Béthune. As for Festubert, Givenchy, Violaines, Rue de Marais,
+Quinque Rue, and La Bassée, we never want to see them again.
+
+[Illustration: YPRES _TO_ LA BASSÉE]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] The letters were written on the 14th October _et seq._ The censor
+was kind.
+
+[18] Dorsets, I think.
+
+[19] I do not say this paragraph is true. It is what I thought on 15th
+October 1914. The weather was depressing.
+
+[20] Optimist!
+
+[21] After nine months at the Front--six and a half months as a despatch
+rider and two and a half months as a cyclist officer--I have decided
+that the English language has no superlative sufficient to describe our
+infantry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF WINTER.
+
+
+Before we came, Givenchy had been a little forgettable village upon a
+hill, Violaines a pleasant afternoon's walk for the working men in La
+Bassée, Festubert a gathering-place for the people who lived in the
+filthy farms around. We left Givenchy a jumble of shuttered houses and
+barricaded cellars. A few Germans were encamped upon the site of
+Violaines. The great clock of Festubert rusted quickly against a tavern
+wall. We hated La Bassée, because against La Bassée the Division had
+been broken. There are some square miles of earth that, like criminals,
+should not live.
+
+Our orders were to reach Caestre not later than the Signal Company.
+Caestre is on the Cassel-Bailleul road, three miles north-east of
+Hazebrouck. These unattached rides across country are the most joyous
+things in the world for a despatch rider. There is never any need to
+hurry. You can take any road you will. You may choose your tavern for
+lunch with expert care. And when new ground is covered and new troops
+are seen, we capture sometimes those sharp delightful moments of
+thirsting interest that made the Retreat into an epic and the Advance a
+triumphant ballad.
+
+N'Soon and myself left together. We skidded along the tow-path, passed
+the ever-cheerful cyclists, and, turning due north, ran into St Venant.
+The grease made us despatch riders look as if we were beginning to
+learn. I rode gently but surely down the side of the road into the
+gutter time after time. Pulling ourselves together, we managed to slide
+past some Indian transport without being kicked by the mules, who,
+whenever they smelt petrol, developed a strong offensive. Then we came
+upon a big gun, discreetly covered by tarpaulins. It was drawn by a
+monster traction-engine, and sad-faced men walked beside it. The
+steering of the traction-engine was a trifle loose, so N'Soon and I drew
+off into a field to let this solemn procession pass. One of the commands
+in the unpublished "Book of the Despatch Rider" is this:--
+
+     _When you halt by the roadside to let guns pass or when you
+     leave your motor-cycle unattended, first place it in a
+     position of certain safety where it cannot possibly be
+     knocked over, and then move it another fifty yards from the
+     road. It is impossible for a gunner to see something by the
+     roadside and not drive over it. Moreover, lorries when they
+     skid, skid furiously._
+
+Four miles short of Hazebrouck we caught up the rest. Proceeding in
+single file along the road, we endeavoured not to laugh, for--as one
+despatch rider said--it makes all the difference on grease which side of
+your mouth you put your pipe in. We reached Hazebrouck at midday.
+Spreading out--the manoeuvre had become a fine art--we searched the
+town. The "Chapeau Rouge" was well reported on, and there we lunched.
+
+All those tourists who will deluge Flanders after the war should go to
+the "Chapeau Rouge" in Hazebrouck. There we had lentil soup and stewed
+kidneys, and roast veal with potatoes and leeks, fruit, cheese, and good
+red wine. So little was the charge that one of us offered to pay it all.
+There are other more fashionable hotels in Hazebrouck, but, trust the
+word of a despatch rider, the "Chapeau Rouge" beats them all.
+
+Very content we rode on to Caestre, arriving there ten minutes before
+the advance-party of the Signal Company. Divisional Headquarters were
+established at the House of the Spy. The owner of the house had been
+well treated by the Germans when they had passed through a month before.
+Upon his door had been written this damning legend--
+
+     HIER SIND GUETIGE LEUTE[22]
+
+and, when on the departure of the Germans the house had been searched by
+an indignant populace, German newspapers had been discovered in his
+bedroom.
+
+It is the custom of the Germans to spare certain houses in every village
+by chalking up some laudatory notice. We despatch riders had a theory
+that the inhabitants of these marked houses, far from being spies, were
+those against whom the Germans had some particular grievance. Imagine
+the wretched family doing everything in its power to avoid the effusive
+affection of the Teuton, breaking all its own crockery, and stealing all
+its own silver, defiling its beds and tearing its clothing. For the man
+whose goods have been spared by the German becomes an outcast. He lives
+in a state worse than death. He is hounded from his property, and driven
+across France with a character attached to him, like a kettle to a
+cat's tail. Genuine spies, on the other hand--so we thought--were worse
+treated than any and secretly recompensed. Such a man became a hero. All
+his neighbours brought their little offerings.
+
+The House of the Spy had a fine garden, hot and buzzing in the
+languorous heat. We bathed ourselves in it. And the sanitary
+arrangements were good.
+
+Grimers arrived lunchless an hour later. He had been promoted to drive
+the captured car. We took him to the tavern where beauty was allied with
+fine cooking. There he ate many omelettes.
+
+In the evening he and I suffered a great disappointment. We wandered
+into another tavern and were about to ask for our usual "Grenadine" when
+we saw behind the bar two bottles of Worthington. For a moment we were
+too stupefied to speak. Then, pulling ourselves together, we stammered
+out an order for beer, but the girl only smiled. They were empty
+bottles, souvenirs left by some rascally A.S.C. for the eternal
+temptation of all who might pass through. The girl in her sympathy
+comforted us with songs, one of which, "Les Serments," I translated for
+the benefit of Grimers, who knew no French. We sang cheerfully in French
+and English until it was time to return to our billet.
+
+In the morning a German aeroplane passed over at a great height. All the
+youngsters in the village tumbled over each other for shelter,
+shouting--Caput! caput![23]
+
+Later in the day we advanced to Bailleul, where we learnt that the 1st
+Corps was fighting furiously to the north. The square was full of
+motor-buses and staff-officers. They were the first of our own
+motor-buses we had seen out in Flanders. They cheered us greatly, and
+after some drinks we sat in one and tried to learn from the map
+something of the new country in which we were to ride. We rejoiced that
+we had come once again upon a Belgian sheet, because the old French map
+we had used, however admirable it might have been for brigadiers and
+suchlike people, was extremely unsuited to a despatch rider's work.
+
+Infantry were pouring through, the stern remnants of fine battalions.
+Ever since the night after Le Cateau infantry in column of route have
+fascinated us, for a regiment on the march bares its character to the
+world.
+
+First there were our brigades marching up to Mons, stalwart and
+cheering. After Le Cateau there were practically no battalions, just a
+crowd of men and transport pouring along the road to Paris. I watched
+the column pass for an hour, and in it there was no organised unit
+larger than a platoon, and only one platoon. How it happened I do not
+know, but, when we turned on the Germans, battalions, brigades,
+divisions, corps had been remade. The battalions were pitifully small.
+Many a time we who were watching said to one another: Surely that's not
+the end of the K.O.Y.L.I., or the Bedfords, or whatever regiment it
+might be!
+
+A battalion going into action has some men singing, some smiling vaguely
+to themselves, some looking raptly straight ahead, and some talking
+quickly as if they must never stop.
+
+A battalion that has come many miles is nearly silent. The strong men
+stride tirelessly without a word. Little weak men, marching on their
+nerves, hobble restlessly along. The men with bad feet limp and curse,
+wilting under the burden of their kit, and behind all come those who
+have fallen out by the way--men dragging themselves along behind a
+waggon, white-faced men with uneasy smiles on top of the waggons. A
+little farther back those who are trying to catch up: these are tragic
+figures, breaking into breathless little runs, but with a fine wavering
+attempt at striding out, as though they might be connecting files, when
+they march through a town or past an officer of high rank.
+
+A battalion that has just come out of action I cannot describe to you in
+these letters, but let me tell you now about Princess Pat's. I ran into
+them just as they were coming into Bailleul for the first time and were
+hearing the sound of the guns. They were the finest lot of men I have
+ever seen on the march. Gusts of great laughter were running through
+them. In the eyes of one or two were tears. And I told those civilians I
+passed that the Canadians, the fiercest of all soldiers, were come.
+Bailleul looked on them with more fright than admiration. The women
+whispered fearfully to each other--Les Canadiens, les Canadiens!...
+
+We despatch riders were given a large room in the house where the
+Divisional Staff was billeted. It had tables, chairs, a fireplace and
+gas that actually lit; so we were more comfortable than ever we had been
+before--that is, all except N'Soon, who had by this time discovered that
+continual riding on bad roads is apt to produce a fundamental soreness.
+N'Soon hung on nobly, but was at last sent away with blood-poisoning.
+Never getting home, he spent many weary months in peculiar convalescent
+camps, and did not join up again until the end of January.
+Moral--before going sick or getting wounded become an officer and a
+gentleman.
+
+The day after we arrived I was once more back in Belgium with a message
+to the C.R.A.[24] at Neuve Eglise. I had last been in Belgium on August
+23, the day we left Dour.
+
+The general might have been posing for a war artist. He was seated at a
+table in the middle of a field, his staff-captain with him. The ground
+sloped away to a wooded valley in which two or three batteries,
+carefully concealed, were blazing away. To the north shrapnel was
+bursting over Kemmel. In front the Messines ridge was almost hidden with
+the smoke of our shells. I felt that each point of interest ought to
+have been labelled in Mr Frederic Villiers' handwriting--"_German
+shrapnel bursting over Kemmel--our guns--this is a dead horse_."
+
+I first saw Ypres on the 6th November. I was sent off with a bundle of
+routine matter to the 1st Corps, then at Brielen, a couple of miles N.W.
+of Ypres. It was a nightmare ride. The road was _pavé_ in the
+centre--villainous _pavé_. At the side of it were glutinous morasses
+about six feet in width, and sixteen inches deep. I started off with
+two 2nd Corps motor-cyclists. There was an almost continuous line of
+transport on the road--motor-lorries that did not dare deviate an inch
+from the centre of the road for fear of slipping into the mire, motor
+ambulances, every kind of transport, and some infantry battalions. After
+following a column of motor-lorries a couple of miles--we stuck twice in
+trying to get past the rearmost lorry--we tried the road by Dranoutre
+and Locre. But these country lanes were worse of surface than the main
+road--greasy _pavé_ is better that greasy rocks--and they were filled
+with odd detachments of French artillery. The two 2nd Corps
+motor-cyclists turned back. I crawled on at the risk of smashing my
+motor-cycle and myself, now skidding perilously between waggons, now
+clogging up, now taking to the fields, now driving frightened
+pedestrians off what the Belgians alone would call a footpath. I skidded
+into a subaltern, and each of us turned to curse, when--it was Gibson, a
+junior "Greats" don at Balliol, and the finest of fellows.
+
+Beyond Dickebusch French artillery were in action on the road. The
+houses just outside Ypres had been pelted with shrapnel but not
+destroyed. Just by the station, which had not then been badly knocked
+about, I learnt where to go. Ypres was the first half-evacuated town I
+had entered. It was like motor-cycling into a village from Oxford very
+early on a Sunday morning. Half an hour later I saw the towers of the
+city rising above a bank of mist which had begun to settle on the
+ground: then out rose great clouds of black smoke.
+
+I came back by Poperinghe to avoid the grease and crowding of the direct
+road, and there being no hurry I stopped at an inn for a beefsteak. The
+landlord's daughter talked of the many difficulties before us, and
+doubted of our success. I said, grandiloquently enough, that no victory
+was worth winning unless there were difficulties. At which she smiled
+and remarked, laughing--
+
+"There are no roses without thorns."
+
+She asked me how long the war would last. I replied that the good God
+alone knew. She shook her head--
+
+"How can the good God look down without a tear on the miseries of his
+people? Are not the flower of the young cut off in the spring of their
+youth?"
+
+Then she pointed to the church across the way, and said humbly--"On a
+beaucoup prié."
+
+She was of the true Flemish type, broad and big-breasted, but with a
+slight stoop, thick hips, dark and fresh-coloured, with large black eyes
+set too closely. Like all the Flemings, she spoke French slowly and
+distinctly, with an accent like the German. She was easy to understand.
+
+I stopped too long at Poperinghe, for it was dark and very misty on the
+road. Beyond Boescheppe--I was out of my way--the mist became a fog.
+Once I had to take to the ditch when some cuirassiers galloped out of
+the fog straight at me. It was all four French soldiers could do to get
+my motor-cycle out. Another time I stuck endeavouring to avoid some
+lorries. It is a diabolical joke of the Comic Imps to put fog upon a
+greasy road for the confusion of a despatch rider.
+
+On the next day I was sent out to the 14th Brigade at the Rue de Paradis
+near Laventie. You will remember that the 14th Brigade had been left to
+strengthen the Indian Corps when the 2nd Corps had moved north. I
+arrived at Rue de Paradis just as the Brigade Headquarters were coming
+into the village. So, while everybody else was fixing wires and
+generally making themselves useful, I rushed upstairs and seized a
+mattress and put it into a dark little dressing-room with hot and cold
+water, a mirror and a wardrobe. Then I locked the door. There I slept,
+washed, and dressed in delicious luxury.
+
+The brigade gave another despatch rider and myself, who were attached,
+very little to do beyond an occasional forty-mile run to D.H.Q. and back
+over dull roads. The signal office was established in a large room on
+the side of the house nearest to the Germans. It was constructed almost
+entirely of glass. Upon this the men commented with a grave fluency. The
+windows rattled with shrapnel bursting 600 yards away. The house was
+jarred through and through by the concussion of a heavy battery firing
+over our heads. The room was like a toy-shop with a lot of small
+children sounding all the musical toys. The vibrators and the buzzers
+were like hoarse toy trumpets.
+
+Our only excitement was the nightly rumour that the General was going to
+move nearer the trenches, that one of us would accompany him--I knew
+what that meant on greasy misty roads.
+
+After I had left, the Germans by chance or design made better practice.
+A shell burst in the garden and shattered all the windows of the room.
+The Staff took refuge in dug-outs that had been made in case of need.
+Tommy, then attached, took refuge in the cellar. According to his own
+account, when he woke up in the morning he was floating. The house had
+some corners taken off it and all the glass was shattered, but no one
+was hurt.
+
+When I returned to Bailleul, Divisional Headquarters were about to move.
+
+A puncture kept me at Bailleul after the others had gone on to Locre.
+Grimers stood by to help. We lunched well, and buying some supplies
+started off along the Ypres road. By this time our kit had accumulated.
+It is difficult enough to pass lorries on a greasy road at any time.
+With an immense weight on the carrier it is almost impossible. So we
+determined to go by Dranoutre. An unfortunate bump dispersed my blankets
+and my ground-sheet in the mud. Grimers said my language might have
+dried them. Finally, that other despatch rider arrived swathed about
+with some filthy, grey, forlorn indescribables.
+
+We were quartered in a large schoolroom belonging to the Convent. We had
+plenty of space and a table to feed at. Fresh milk and butter we could
+buy from the nuns, while a market-gardener just across the road supplied
+us with a sack of miscellaneous vegetables--potatoes, carrots, turnips,
+onions, leeks--for practically nothing. We lived gloriously. There was
+just enough work to make us feel we really were doing something, and not
+enough to make us wish we were on the Staff. Bridge we played every hour
+of the day, and "Pollers," our sergeant, would occasionally try a
+little flutter in Dominoes and Patience.
+
+At Bailleul the Skipper had suggested our learning to manage the
+unmechanical horse. The suggestion became an order. We were bumped round
+unmercifully at first, until many of us were so sore that the touch of a
+motor-cycle saddle on _pavé_ was like hot-iron to a tender skin. Then we
+were handed over to a friendly sergeant, who believed in more
+gentlemanly methods, and at Locre we had great rides--though Pollers,
+who was gently unhorsed, is still firmly convinced that wind-mills form
+the finest deterrent to cavalry.
+
+In an unlucky moment two of us had suggested that we should like to
+learn signaller's work, so we fell upon evil days. First we went out for
+cable-drill. Sounds simple? But it is more arduous and dangerous than
+any despatch riding. If you "pay out" too quickly, you get tangled up in
+the wire and go with it nicely over the drum. If you pay out too slowly,
+you strangle the man on the horse behind you. The worst torture in the
+world is paying out at the fast trot over cobbles. First you can't hold
+on, and if you can you can't pay out regularly.
+
+Cable-drill is simply nothing compared to the real laying of cable. We
+did it twice--once in rain and once in snow. The rainy day I paid out,
+I was never more miserable in my life than I was after two miles. Only
+hot coffee and singing good songs past cheery Piou-pious brought me
+home. The snowy day I ran with ladders, and, perched on the topmost
+rung, endeavoured to pass the wire round a buxom tree-trunk. Then, when
+it was round, it would always go slack before I could get it tied up
+tightly.
+
+It sounds so easy, laying a wire. But I swear it is the most wearying
+business in the world--punching holes in the ground with a 16-lb.
+hammer, running up poles that won't go straight, unhooking wire that has
+caught in a branch or in the eaves of a house, taking the strain of a
+cable to prevent man and ladder and wire coming on top of you, when the
+man who pays out has forgotten to pay. Have a thought for the wretched
+fellows who are getting out a wire on a dark and snowy night, troubled
+perhaps by persistent snipers and frequent shells! Shed a tear for the
+miserable linesman sent out to find where the line is broken or
+defective....
+
+When there was no chance of "a run" we would go for walks towards
+Kemmel. At the time the Germans were shelling the hill, but occasionally
+they would break off, and then we would unofficially go up and see what
+had happened.
+
+Now Mont Kemmel is nearly covered with trees. I have never been in a
+wood under shell fire, and I do not wish to be. Where the Germans had
+heavily shelled Kemmel there were great holes, trees thrown about and
+riven and scarred and crushed--a terrific immensity of blasphemous
+effort. It was as if some great beast, wounded mortally, had plunged
+into a forest, lashing and biting and tearing in his agony until he
+died.
+
+On one side of the hill was a little crazy cottage which had
+marvellously escaped. Three shells had fallen within ten yards of it.
+Two had not burst, and the other, shrapnel, had exploded in the earth.
+The owner came out, a trifling, wizened old man in the usual Belgian cap
+and blue overalls. We had a talk, using the _lingua franca_ of French,
+English with a Scottish accent, German, and the few words of Dutch I
+could remember.
+
+We dug up for him a large bit of the casing of the shrapnel. He examined
+it fearfully. It was an 11-inch shell, I think, nearly as big as his wee
+grotesque self. Then he made a noise, which we took to be a laugh, and
+told us that he had been very frightened in his little house (häusling),
+and his cat, an immense white Tom, had been more frightened still. But
+he knew the Germans could not hit him. Thousands and thousands of
+Germans had gone by, and a little after the last German came the
+English. "Les Anglais sont bons."
+
+This he said with an air of finality. It is a full-blooded judgment
+which, though it sounds a trifle exiguous to describe our manifold
+heroic efforts, is a sort of perpetual epithet. The children use it
+confidingly when they run to our men in the cafés. The peasants use it
+as a parenthetical verdict whenever they mention our name. The French
+fellows use it, and I have heard a German prisoner say the same.
+
+A few days later those who lived on Kemmel were "evacuated." They were
+rounded up into the Convent yard, men and women and children, with their
+hens and pigs. At first they were angry and sorrowful; but nobody, not
+even the most indignant refugee, could resist our military policemen,
+and in three-quarters of an hour they all trudged off, cheerfully
+enough, along the road to Bailleul.
+
+The wee grotesque man and his immense white cat were not with them.
+Perhaps they still live on Kemmel. Some time I shall go and see....
+
+If we did not play Bridge after our walks, we would look in at the
+theatre or stroll across to dinner and Bridge with Gibson and his
+brother officers of the K.O.S.B., then billeted at Locre.
+
+Not all convents have theatres: this was a special convent. The Signal
+Company slept in the theatre, and of an evening all the kit would be
+moved aside. One of the military policemen could play anything; so we
+danced and sang until the lights went out. The star performer was
+"Spot," the servant of an A.D.C.
+
+"Spot" was a little man with a cheerful squint. He knew everything that
+had ever been recited, and his knowledge of the more ungodly songs was
+immense. He would start off with an imitation of Mr H.B. Irving, and a
+very good imitation it would be--with soft music. He would leave the
+Signallers thrilled and silent. The lights flashed up, and "Spot" darted
+off on some catchy doggerel of an almost talented obscenity. In private
+life Spot was the best company imaginable. He could not talk for a
+minute without throwing in a bit of a recitation and striking an
+attitude. I have only known him serious on two subjects--his master and
+Posh. He would pour out with the keenest delight little stories of how
+his master endeavoured to correct his servant's accent. There was a
+famous story of "a n'orse"--but that is untellable.
+
+Posh may be defined, very roughly, as a useless striving after
+gentlemanly culture. Sometimes a chauffeur or an H.Q. clerk would
+endeavour to speak very correct English in front of Spot.
+
+"'E was poshy, my dear boy, positively poshy. 'E made me shiver until I
+cried. 'Smith, old man,' I said to 'im, 'you can't do it. You're not
+born to it nor bred to it. Those that try is just demeaning themselves.
+Posh, my dear boy, pure posh.'"
+
+And Spot would give a cruel imitation of the wretched Smith's mincing
+English. The punishment was the more bitter, because all the world knew
+that Spot could speak the King's English as well as anybody if only he
+chose. To the poshy alone was Spot unkind. He was a generous,
+warm-hearted little man, with real wisdom and a fine appreciation of men
+and things.... There were other performers of the usual type, young men
+who sang about the love-light in her eyes, older men with crude songs,
+and a Scotsman with an expressionless face, who mumbled about we could
+never discover what.
+
+The audience was usually strengthened by some half-witted girls that the
+Convent educated, and two angelic nuns. Luckily for them, they only
+understood a slow and grammatical English, and listened to crude songs
+and sentimental songs with the same expression of maternal content.
+
+Our work at Locre was not confined to riding and cable-laying. The 15th
+Brigade and two battalions of the 13th were fighting crazily at Ypres,
+the 14th had come up to Dranoutre, and the remaining two battalions of
+the 13th were at Neuve Eglise.
+
+I had two more runs to the Ypres district before we left Locre. On the
+first the road was tolerable to Ypres, though near the city I was nearly
+blown off my bicycle by the fire of a concealed battery of 75's. The
+houses at the point where the Rue de Lille enters the Square had been
+blown to bits. The Cloth Hall had barely been touched. In its glorious
+dignity it was beautiful.
+
+Beyond Ypres, on the Hooge Road, I first experienced the extreme
+neighbourhood of a "J.J." It fell about 90 yards in front of me and 20
+yards off the road. It makes a curiously low droning sound as it falls,
+like the groan of a vastly sorrowful soul in hell,--so I wrote at the
+time: then there's a gigantic rushing plunk and overwhelming crash as if
+all the houses in the world were falling.
+
+On the way back the road, which had been fairly greasy, became
+practically impassable. I struggled on until my lamp failed (sheer
+carelessness--I ought to have seen to it before starting), and a gale
+arose which blew me all over the road. So I left my motor-bicycle safely
+behind a cottage, and started tramping back to H.Q. by the light of my
+pocket flash-lamp. It was a pitch-black night. I was furiously hungry,
+and stopped at the first inn and gorged coffee with rum, and a large
+sandwich of bread and butter and fat bacon. I had barely started
+again--it had begun to pour--when a car came along with a French
+staff-officer inside. I stopped it, saying in hurried and weighty tones
+that I was carrying an important despatch (I had nothing on me, I am
+afraid, but a trifling bunch of receipts), and the rest of the way I
+travelled lapped luxuriously in soft furs.
+
+The second time I rode along a frozen road between white fields. All the
+shells sounded alarmingly near. The noise in Ypres was terrific. At my
+destination I came across some prisoners of the Prussian Guard, fierce
+and enormous men, nearly all with reddish hair, very sullen and rude.
+
+From accounts that have been published of the first battle of Ypres, it
+might be inferred that the British Army knew it was on the point of
+being annihilated. A despatch rider, though of course he does not know
+very much of the real meaning of the military situation, has unequalled
+opportunities for finding out the opinions and spirit of the men. Now
+one of us went to Ypres every day and stopped for a few minutes to
+discuss the state of affairs with other despatch riders and with
+signal-sergeants. Right through the battle we were confident; in fact
+the idea that the line might be broken never entered our heads. We were
+suffering very heavily. That we knew. Nothing like the shell fire had
+ever been heard before. Nobody realised how serious the situation must
+have been until the accounts were published.
+
+Huggie has a perfect mania for getting frightened; so one day, instead
+of leaving the routine matter that he carried at a place whence it might
+be forwarded at leisure, he rode along the Menin road to the Chateau at
+Hooge, the headquarters of the 15th Brigade. He came back quietly happy,
+telling us that he had had a good time, though the noise had been a
+little overwhelming. We learned afterwards that the enemy had been
+registering very accurately upon the Hooge road.
+
+So the time passed without any excitement until November 23, when first
+we caught hold of a definite rumour that we should be granted leave. We
+existed in restless excitement until the 27th. On that great day we were
+told that we should be allowed a week's leave. We solemnly drew lots,
+and I drew the second batch.
+
+We left the Convent at Locre in a dream, and took up quarters at St Jans
+Cappel, two miles west of Bailleul. We hardly noticed that our billet
+was confined and uncomfortable. Certainly we never realised that we
+should stop there until the spring. The first batch went off
+hilariously, and with slow pace our day drew nearer and nearer.
+
+You may think it a little needless of me to write about my leave, if you
+do not remember that we despatch riders of the Fifth Division enlisted
+on or about August 6. Few then realised that England had gone to war.
+Nobody realised what sort of a war the war was going to be. When we
+returned in the beginning of December we were Martians. For three months
+we had been vividly soldiers. We had been fighting not in a savage
+country, but in a civilised country burnt by war; and it was because of
+this that the sights of war had struck us so fiercely that when we came
+back our voyage in the good ship _Archimedes_ seemed so many years
+distant. Besides, if I were not to tell you of my leave it would make
+such a gap in my memories that I should scarcely know how to continue my
+tale....
+
+The week dragged more slowly than I can describe. Short-handed, we had
+plenty of work to do, but it was all routine work, which gave us too
+much time to think. There was also a crazy doubt of the others' return.
+They were due back a few hours before we started. If they fell ill or
+missed the boat...! And the fools were motor-cycling to and from
+Boulogne!
+
+On the great night we prepared some food for them, and having packed our
+kits, tried to sleep. As the hour drew near we listened excitedly for
+the noise of their engines. Several false alarms disturbed us: first, a
+despatch rider from the Third Division, and then another from the Corps.
+At last we heard the purr of three engines together, and then a moment
+later the faint rustle of others in the distance. We recognised the
+engines and jumped up. All the birds came home save one. George had
+never quite recovered from his riding exercises. Slight blood poisoning
+had set in. His leave had been extended at home. So poor "Tommy," who
+had joined us at Beuvry, was compelled to remain behind.
+
+Violent question and answer for an hour, then we piled ourselves on our
+light lorry. Singing like angels we rattled into Bailleul. Just opposite
+Corps Headquarters, our old billet, we found a little crowd waiting.
+None of us could talk much for the excitement. We just wandered about
+greeting friends. I met again that stoutest of warriors, Mr Potter of
+the 15th Artillery Brigade, a friend of Festubert days. Then a battalion
+of French infantry passed through, gallant and cheerful men. At last the
+old dark-green buses rolled up, and about three in the morning we
+pounded off at a good fifteen miles an hour along the Cassel road.
+
+Two of us sat on top, for it was a gorgeous night. We rattled over the
+_pavé_ alongside multitudinous transport sleeping at the side of the
+road--through Metern, through Caestre of pleasant memories, and south to
+Hazebrouck. Our driver was a man of mark, a racing motorist in times of
+peace. He left the other buses and swung along rapidly by himself. He
+slowed down for nothing. Just before Hazebrouck we caught up a French
+convoy. I do not quite know what happened. The Frenchmen took cover in
+one ditch. We swayed past, half in the other, at a good round pace.
+Waggons seemed to disappear under our wheels, and frightened horses
+plunged violently across the road. But we passed them without a
+scratch--to be stopped by the level-crossing at Hazebrouck. There we
+filled up with coffee and cognac, while the driver told us of his
+adventures in Antwerp.
+
+We rumbled out of Hazebrouck towards St Omer. It was a clear dawn in
+splashes of pure colour. All the villages were peaceful, untouched by
+war. When we came to St Omer it was quite light. All the soldiers in the
+town looked amateurish. We could not make out what was the matter with
+them, until somebody noticed that their buttons shone. We drew up in the
+square, the happiest crew imaginable, but with a dignity such as
+befitted chosen N.C.O.'s and officers.
+
+That was the first time I saw St Omer. When last I came to it I saw
+little, because I arrived in a motor-ambulance and left in a
+hospital-train.
+
+The top of the bus was crowded, and we talked "shop" together. _Sixth
+Division's having a pretty cushy time, what?--So you were at Mons!_ (in
+a tone of respect)--_I don't mind their shells, and I don't mind their
+machine-guns, but their Minenwerfer are the frozen limit!--I suppose
+there's no chance of our missing the boat. Yes, it was a pretty fair
+scrap--Smith? He's gone. Silly fool, wanted to have a look round--Full
+of buck? Rather! Yes, heard there's a pretty good show on at the
+Frivolity--Beastly cold on top of this old wheezer_.
+
+It was, but none of us cared a scrap. We looked at the sign-posts that
+showed the distance to Boulogne, and then pretended that we had not seen
+them. Lurching and skidding and toiling we came to the top of the hill
+above Boulogne. With screaming brakes we rattled down to the harbour.
+That old sinner, Sergeant Maguire, who was in charge of us corporals,
+made all arrangements efficiently. We embarked, and after a year of
+Sundays cast off.
+
+There was a certain swell on, and Mr Potter, the bravest of men, grew
+greener and greener. My faith in mankind went.
+
+We saw a dark line on the horizon.
+
+"By Jove, there's England!" We all produced our field-glasses and looked
+through them very carefully for quite a long time.
+
+"So it is. Funny old country"--a pause--"Makes one feel quite
+sentimental, just like the books. That's what we're fighting for, I
+suppose. Wouldn't fight for dirty old Dover! Wonder if they still charge
+you a penny for each sardine. I suppose we'll have to draw the blinds
+all the way up to London. Not a safe country by any means, far rather
+stop in the jolly old trenches."
+
+"You'll get the white feather, old man."
+
+"No pretty young thing would give it you. Why, you wouldn't look
+medically fit in mufti!"
+
+"Fancy seeing a woman who isn't dirty and can talk one's own lingo!"
+
+So we came to Folkestone, and all the people on the pier smiled at us.
+We scuttled ashore and shook ourselves for delight. There was a
+policeman, a postman. Who are these fussy fellows with badges on their
+arms? Special constables, of course!
+
+Spurning cigarettes and bovril we rushed to the bar. We all noticed the
+cleanness of the barmaid, her beauty, the neatness of her dress, her
+cultivated talk. We almost squabbled about what drinks we should have
+first. Finally, we divided into parties--the Beers and the
+Whisky-and-Sodas. Then there were English papers to buy, and, of course,
+we must have a luncheon-basket....
+
+The smell of the musty S.-E. & C.R. compartment was the scent of eastern
+roses. We sniffed with joy in the tunnels. We read all the notices with
+care. Nearing London we became silent. Quite disregarding the order to
+lower the blinds, we gazed from the bridge at a darkened London and the
+searchlight beams. Feverishly we packed our kit and stood up in the
+carriage. We jerked into the flare of Victoria. Dazzled and confused, we
+looked at the dense crowd of beaming, anxious people. There was a tug at
+my elbow, and a triumphant voice shouted--
+
+"I've found him! Here he is! There's your Mother." ...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This strange familiar country seemed to us clean, careless, and full of
+men. The streets were clean; the men and women were clean. Out in
+Flanders a little grime came as a matter of course. One's uniform was
+dirty. Well, it had seen service. There was no need to be particular
+about the set of the tunic and the exact way accoutrements should be
+put on. But here the few men in khaki sprinkled about the streets had
+their buttons cleaned and not a thing was out of place. We wondered
+which of them belonged to the New Armies. The women, too, were clean and
+beautiful. This sounds perhaps to you a foolish thing to say, but it is
+true. The Flemish woman is not so clean as she is painted, and as for
+women dressed with any attempt at fashionable display--we had seen none
+since August. Nadine at Dour had been neat; Hélène at Carlepont had been
+companionable; the pretty midinette at Maast had been friendly and not
+over-dirty. For a day or two after I returned to my own country I could
+not imagine how anybody ever could leave it.
+
+And all the people were free from care. However cheerful those brave but
+irritating folk who live behind the line may be, they have always
+shadows in their eyes. We had never been to a village through which the
+Germans had not passed. Portly and hilarious the Teuton may have shown
+himself--kindly and well-behaved he undoubtedly was in many
+places--there came with him a terror which stayed after he had gone,
+just as a mist sways above the ground after the night has flown.
+
+At first we thought that no one at home cared about the war--then we
+realised it was impossible for anybody to care about the war who had not
+seen war. People might be intensely interested in the course of
+operations. They might burn for their country's success, and flame out
+against those who threatened her. They might suffer torments of anxiety
+for a brother in danger, or the tortures of grief for a brother who had
+died. The FACT of war, the terror and the shame, the bestiality and the
+awful horror, the pity and the disgust--they could never _know_ war. So
+we thought them careless....
+
+Again, though we had been told very many had enlisted, the streets
+seemed ludicrously full of men. In the streets of Flanders there are
+women and children and old men and others. These others would give all
+that they had to put on uniform and march gravely or gaily to the
+trenches. In Flanders a man who is fit and wears no uniform is instantly
+suspected of espionage. I am grinding no axe. I am advocating nothing or
+attacking nothing. I am merely stating as a fact that, suspicious and
+contemptuous as we had been in Flanders of every able-bodied man who was
+not helping to defend his country, it seemed grotesque to us to find so
+many civilian men in the streets of the country to which we had
+returned.
+
+Of the heavenly quietness and decency of life, of late breakfasts and
+later dinners, there is no need to tell, but even before the week was up
+unrest troubled us. The Division might go violently into action. The
+Germans might break through. The "old Div." would be wanting us, and we
+who felt towards the Division as others feel towards their Regiments
+were eager to get back....
+
+On the boat I met Gibson. At Boulogne we clambered into the same bus and
+passed the time in sipping old rum, eating chocolate biscuits, reading
+the second volume of 'Sinister Street,' and sleeping. At St Omer our
+craving for an omelette nearly lost us the bus. Then we slept. All that
+I can remember of the rest of the journey is that we stopped near
+Bailleul. An anxious corporal popped his head in.
+
+"Mr Brown here?"
+
+"Ye--e--s," sleepily, "what the devil do you want?"
+
+"Our battery's in action, sir, a few miles from here. I've got your
+horses ready waiting, sir."
+
+Mr Brown was thoroughly awake in a moment. He disturbed everybody
+collecting his kit. Then he vanished.
+
+We were late at Bailleul, and there was no one to meet us. The Cyclists
+as usual came to our help. Their gig was waiting, and climbing into it
+we drove furiously to St Jans Cappel. Making some sort of beds for
+ourselves, we fell asleep. When we woke up in the morning our leave was
+a dream.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[22] Here are kindly people.
+
+[23] French, Flemish, and German slang expression. Done for!
+
+[24] An abbreviation for the general in command of the Divisional
+Artillery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ST JANS CAPPEL.
+
+
+Soon after our return there were rumours of a grand attack. Headquarters
+positively sizzled with the most expensive preparations. At a given word
+the Staff were to dash out in motor-cars to a disreputable tavern, so
+that they could see the shells bursting. A couple of despatch riders
+were to keep with them in order to fetch their cars when the day's work
+was over. A mobile reserve of motor-cyclists was to be established in a
+farm under cover.
+
+The whole scheme was perfect. There was good rabbit-shooting near the
+tavern. The atmosphere inside was so thick that it actually induced
+slumber. The landlady possessed an excellent stove, upon which the
+Staff's lunch, prepared with quiet genius at St Jans, might be heated
+up. The place was dirty enough to give all those in authority, who might
+come round to see that the British Army was really doing something, a
+vivid conception of the horrors of war. And, as I have said, there was a
+slope behind the road from which lots and lots of shells could be seen
+bursting.
+
+The word came. We arrived at the tavern before dawn. The Staff sauntered
+about outside in delicious anticipation. We all looked at our watches.
+Punctually at six the show began. Guns of all shapes and sizes had been
+concentrated. They made an overwhelming noise. Over the German trenches
+on the near slope of the Messines ridge flashed multitudinous points of
+flame. The Germans were being furiously shelled. The dawn came up while
+the Staff were drinking their matutinal tea. The Staff set itself
+sternly to work. Messages describing events at La Bassée poured in. They
+were conscientiously read and rushed over the wires to our brigades. The
+guns were making more noise than they had ever made before. The Germans
+were cowering in their trenches. It was all our officers could do to
+hold back their men, who were straining like hounds in a leash to get at
+the hated foe. A shell fell among some of the gunners' transport and
+wounded a man and two horses. That stiffened us. The news was flashed
+over the wire to G.H.Q. The transport was moved rapidly, but in good
+order, to a safer place. The guns fired more furiously than ever.
+
+As soon as there was sufficient light, the General's A.D.C., crammed
+full of the lust for blood, went out and shot some rabbits and some
+indescribable birds, who by this time were petrified with fear. They had
+never heard such a noise before. That other despatch rider sat
+comfortably in a car, finished at his leisure the second volume of
+'Sinister Street,' and wrote a lurid description of a modern battle.
+
+Before the visitors came, the scene was improved by the construction of
+a large dug-out near the tavern. It is true that if the Staff had taken
+to the dug-out they would most certainly have been drowned. That did not
+matter. Every well-behaved Divisional Staff must have a dug-out near its
+Advanced Headquarters. It is always "done."
+
+Never was a Division so lucky in its visitors. A certain young prince of
+high lineage arrived. Everybody saluted at the same time. He was, I
+think, duly impressed by the atmosphere of the tavern, the sight of the
+Staff's maps, the inundated dug-outs, the noise of the guns and the
+funny balls of smoke that the shells made when they exploded over the
+German lines.
+
+What gave this battle a humorous twist for all time was the delectable
+visit of a Cabinet Minister. He came in a car and brought with him his
+own knife and fork and a loaf of bread as his contribution to the
+Divisional Lunch. When he entered the tavern he smelt among other smells
+the delicious odour of rabbit-pie. With hurried but charming
+condescension he left his loaf on the stove, where it dried for a day or
+two until the landlady had the temerity to appropriate it. He was fed,
+so far as I remember on--
+
+                     Soup.
+                     Fish.
+     Rabbit-pie.   Potatoes.   Cabbage.
+                  Apple-tart.
+        Fruit.      Coffee.    Liqueurs.
+
+and after lunch, I am told, showed a marked disinclination to ascend the
+hill and watch the shells bursting. He was only a "civvy."[25]
+
+The battle lasted about ten days. Each morning the Staff, like lazy men
+who are "something in the city," arrived a little later at the tavern.
+Each afternoon they departed a little earlier. The rabbits decreased in
+number, and finally, when two days running the A.D.C. had been able to
+shoot nothing at all, the Division returned for good to the Chateau at
+St Jans Cappel.
+
+For this mercy the despatch riders were truly grateful. Sitting the
+whole day in the tavern, we had all contracted bad headaches. Even
+chess, the 'Red Magazine,' and the writing of letters, could do nothing
+to dissipate our unutterable boredom. Never did we pass that tavern
+afterwards without a shudder of disgust. With joyous content we heard a
+month or two later that it had been closed for providing drinks after
+hours.
+
+Officially the grand attack had taken this course. The French to the
+north had been held up by the unexpected strength of the German defence.
+The 3rd Division on our immediate left had advanced a trifle, for the
+Gordons had made a perilous charge into the Petit Bois, a wood at the
+bottom of the Wytschaete Heights. And the Royal Scots had put in some
+magnificent work, for which they were afterwards very properly
+congratulated. The Germans in front of our Division were so cowed by our
+magniloquent display of gunnery that they have remained moderately quiet
+ever since.
+
+After these December manoeuvres nothing of importance happened on our
+front until the spring, when the Germans, whom we had tickled with
+intermittent gunnery right through the winter, began to retaliate with
+a certain energy.
+
+The Division that has no history is not necessarily happy. There were
+portions of the line, it is true, which provided a great deal of comfort
+and very little danger. Fine dug-outs were constructed--you have
+probably seen them in the illustrated papers. The men were more at home
+in such trenches than in the ramshackle farms behind the lines. These
+show trenches were emphatically the exception. The average trench on the
+line during last winter was neither comfortable nor safe. Yellow clay,
+six inches to four feet or more of stinking water, many corpses behind
+the trenches buried just underneath the surface-crust, and in front of
+the trenches not buried at all, inveterate sniping from a slightly
+superior position--these are not pleasant bedfellows. The old Division
+(or rather the new Division--the infantrymen of the old Division were
+now pitifully few) worked right hard through the winter. When the early
+spring came and the trenches were dry, the Division was sent north to
+bear a hand in the two bloodiest actions of the war. So far as I know,
+in the whole history of British participation in this war there has
+never been a more murderous fight than one of these two actions--and
+the Division, with slight outside help, managed the whole affair.
+
+Twice in the winter there was an attempted _rapprochement_ between the
+Germans and ourselves. The more famous gave the Division a mention by
+"Eyewitness," so we all became swollen with pride.
+
+On the Kaiser's birthday one-and-twenty large shells were dropped
+accurately into a farm suspected of being a battalion or brigade
+headquarters. The farm promptly acknowledged the compliment by blowing
+up, and all round it little explosions followed. Nothing pleases a
+gunner more than to strike a magazine. He always swears he knew it was
+there the whole time, and, as gunners are dangerous people to quarrel
+with, we always pretended to believe the tale.
+
+There are many people in England still who cannot stomach the story of
+the Christmas truce. "Out there," we cannot understand why. Good
+fighting men respect good fighting men. On our front, and on the fronts
+of other divisions, the Germans had behaved throughout the winter with a
+passable gentlemanliness. Besides, neither the British nor the German
+soldier--with the possible exception of the Prussians--has been able to
+stoke up that virulent hate which devastates so many German and British
+homes. A certain lance-corporal puts the matter thus:[26]--
+
+"We're fightin' for somethink what we've got. Those poor beggars is
+fightin' cos they've got to. An' old Bill Kayser's fightin' for
+somethin' what 'e'll never get. But 'e will get somethink, and that's a
+good 'iding!"[27]
+
+We even had a sneaking regard for that "cunning old bird, Kayser Bill."
+Our treatment of prisoners explains the Christmas Truce. The British
+soldier, except when he is smarting under some dirty trick, suffering
+under terrible loss, or maddened by fighting or fatigue, treats his
+prisoners with a tolerant, rather contemptuous kindness. May God in His
+mercy help any poor German who falls into the hands of a British soldier
+when the said German has "done the dirty" or has "turned nasty"! There
+is no judge so remorseless, no executioner so ingenious in making the
+punishment fit the crime.
+
+This is what I wrote home a day or two after Christmas: From six on
+Christmas Eve to six in the evening on Christmas Day there was a truce
+between two regiments of our Division and the Germans opposite them.
+Heads popped up and were not sniped. Greetings were called across. One
+venturesome, enthusiastic German got out of his trench and stood waving
+a branch of Christmas Tree. Soon there was a fine pow-wow going on.
+Cigars were exchanged for tobacco. Friendship was pledged in socks. The
+Germans brought out some beer and the English some rum. Finally, on
+Christmas Day, there was a great concert and dance. The Germans were
+spruce, elderly men, keen and well fed, with buttons cleaned for the
+occasion. They appeared to have plenty of supplies, and were fully
+equipped with everything necessary for a winter campaign. A third
+battalion, wisely but churlishly, refused these seasonable advances, and
+shot four men who appeared with a large cask of what was later
+discovered to be beer....
+
+"The Div." were billeted in a chateau on the slope of a hill
+three-quarters of a mile above St Jans Cappel. This desirable residence
+stands in two acres of garden, just off the road. At the gate was a
+lodge. Throughout the winter we despatch riders lived in two small rooms
+of this lodge. We averaged fourteen in number. Two were out with the
+brigades, leaving twelve to live, eat, and sleep in two rooms, each
+about 15 ft. by 8 ft. We were distinctly cramped, and cursed the day
+that had brought us to St Jans. It was a cruel stroke that gave us for
+our winter quarters the worst billets we had ever suffered.
+
+As we became inclined to breakfast late, nine o'clock parade was
+instituted. Breakfast took place before or after, as the spirit listed.
+Bacon, tea, and bread came from the cook. We added porridge and
+occasionally eggs. The porridge we half-cooked the night before.
+
+After breakfast we began to clean our bicycles, no light task, and the
+artificers started on repairs. The cleaning process was usually broken
+into by the arrival of the post and the papers of the day before.
+Cleaning the bicycles, sweeping out the rooms, reading and writing
+letters, brought us to dinner at 1.
+
+This consisted of bully or fresh meat stew with vegetables (or
+occasionally roast or fried meat), bread and jam. As we became more
+luxurious we would provide for ourselves Yorkshire pudding, which we
+discovered trying to make pancakes, and pancakes, which we discovered
+trying to make Yorkshire pudding. Worcester Sauce and the invaluable
+curry powder were never wanting. After dinner we smoked a lethargic
+pipe.
+
+In the afternoon it was customary to take some exercise. To reduce the
+strain on our back tyres we used to trudge manfully down into the
+village, or, if we were feeling energetic, to the ammunition column a
+couple of miles away. Any distance over two miles we covered on
+motor-cycles. Their use demoralised us. Our legs shrunk away.
+
+Sometimes two or three of us would ride to a sand-pit on Mont Noir and
+blaze away with our revolvers. Incidentally, not one of us had fired a
+shot in anger since the war began. We treated our revolvers as
+unnecessary luggage. In time we became skilled in their use, and
+thereafter learnt to keep them moderately clean. We had been served out
+with revolvers at Chatham, but had never practised with them--except at
+Carlow for a morning, and then we were suffering from the effects of
+inoculation. They may be useful when we get to Germany.
+
+Shopping in Bailleul was less strenuous. We were always buying something
+for supper--a kilo of liver, some onions, a few sausages--anything that
+could be cooked by the unskilled on a paraffin-stove. Then after
+shopping there were cafés we could drop into, sure of a welcome. It was
+impossible to live from November to March "within easy reach of town"
+and not make friends.
+
+Milk for tea came from the farm in which No. 1 Section of the Signal
+Company was billeted. When first we were quartered at St Jans this
+section wallowed in some mud a little above the chateau.
+
+Because I had managed to make myself understood to some German
+prisoners, I was looked upon as a great linguist, and vulgarly credited
+with a knowledge of all the European languages. So I was sent, together
+with the Quartermaster-Sergeant and the Sergeant-Major, on billeting
+expeditions. Arranging for quarters at the farm, I made great friends
+with the farmer. He was a tall, thin, lithe old man, with a crumpled
+wife and prodigiously large family. He was a man of affairs, too, for
+once a month in peace time he would drive into Hazebrouck. While his
+wife got me the milk, we used to sit by the fire and smoke our pipes and
+discuss the terrible war and the newspapers. One of the most
+embarrassing moments I have ever experienced was when he bade me tell
+the sergeants that he regarded them as brothers, and loved them all. I
+said it first in French, that he might hear, and then in English. The
+sergeants blushed, while the old man beamed.
+
+We loved the Flemish, and, for the most part, they loved us. When
+British soldiers arrived in a village the men became clean, the women
+smart, and the boys inevitably procured putties and wore them with
+pride. The British soldier is certainly not insular. He tries hard to
+understand the words and ways of his neighbours. He has a rough tact, a
+crude courtesy, and a great-hearted generosity. In theory no task could
+be more difficult than the administration of the British Area. Even a
+friendly military occupation is an uncomfortable burden. Yet never have
+I known any case of real ill-feeling. Personally, during my nine months
+at the Front, I have always received from the French and the Belgians
+amazing kindness and consideration. As an officer I came into contact
+with village and town officials over questions of billets and
+requisitions. In any difficulty I received courteous assistance. No
+trouble was too great; no time was too valuable....
+
+After tea of cakes and rolls the bridge-players settled down to a quiet
+game, with pipes to hand and whisky and siphons on the sideboard. We
+took it in turns to cook some delicacy for supper at 8--sausages,
+curried sardines, liver and bacon, or--rarely but joyously--fish. At one
+time or another we feasted on all the luxuries, but fish was rarer than
+rubies. When we had it we did not care if we stank out the whole lodge
+with odours of its frying. We would lie down to sleep content in a
+thick fishy, paraffin-y, dripping-y atmosphere. When I came home I could
+not think what the delicious smell was in a certain street. Then my
+imagination struck out a picture--Grimers laboriously frying a dab over
+a smoky paraffin-stove.
+
+On occasions after supper we would brew a large jorum of good rum-punch,
+sing songs with roaring choruses, and finish up the evening with a good
+old scrap over somebody else's bed. The word went round to "mobilise,"
+and we would all stand ready, each on his bed, to repel boarders. If the
+sanctity of your bed were violated, the intruder would be cast
+vigorously into outer darkness. Another song, another drink, a final
+pipe, and to bed.
+
+Our Christmas would have been a grand day if it had not been away from
+home.
+
+At eight o'clock there was breakfast of porridge, bacon and eggs, and
+bloaters--everybody in the best of spirits. About nine the Skipper
+presented us with cards from the King and Queen. Then the mail came in,
+but it was poor. By the time we had tidied up our places and done a
+special Christmas shave and wash, we were called upon to go down to the
+cookhouse and sign for Princess Mary's Christmas gift--a good pipe, and
+in a pleasant little brass box lay a Christmas card, a photograph, a
+packet of cigarettes, and another of excellent tobacco.
+
+It was now lunch-time--steak and potatoes.
+
+The afternoon was spent on preparations for our great and unexampled
+dinner. Grimers printed the menu, and while I made some cold curried
+sardines, the rest went down into the village to stimulate the landlady
+of the inn where we were going to dine.
+
+In the village a brigade was billeted, and that brigade was, of course,
+"on the wire." It was arranged that the despatch riders next on the list
+should take their motor-cycles down and be summoned over the wire if
+they were needed. An order had come round that unimportant messages were
+to be kept until the morning.
+
+We dined in the large kitchen of the _Maison Commune Estaminet_, at a
+long table decorated with mistletoe and holly. The dinner--the result of
+two days' "scrounging" under the direction of George--was too good to be
+true. We toasted each other and sang all the songs we knew. Two of the
+Staff clerks wandered in and told us we were the best of all possible
+despatch riders. We drank to them uproariously. Then a Scotsman turned
+up with a noisy recitation. Finally, we all strolled home up the hill
+singing loudly and pleasantly, very exhilarated, in sure and certain
+belief we had spent the best of all possible evenings.
+
+In the dwelling of the Staff there was noise of revelry. Respectable
+captains with false noses peered out of windows. Our Fat Boy declaimed
+in the signal office on the iniquities of the artillery telegraphists.
+Sadders sent gentle messages of greeting over the wires. He was still a
+little piqued at his failure to secure the piper of the K.O.S.B., who
+had been commandeered by the Staff. Sadders waited for him until early
+morning and then steered him to our lodge, but the piper was by then too
+tired to play.
+
+Here is our bill of fare:--
+
+               CHRISTMAS, 1914.
+
+                   DINNER
+                   OF THE
+     TEN SURVIVING MOTOR-CYCLISTS OF THE
+           FAMOUS FIFTH DIVISION.
+
+           Sardins très Moutard.
+                   Potage.
+       Dindon Rôti-Saucisses. Oise Rôti.
+          Petits Choux de Bruxelles.
+              Pommes de Terre.
+            Pouding de Noël Rhum.
+           Dessert. Café. Liqueurs.
+      _Vins._--Champagne. Moselle. Port.
+            Benedictine. Whisky.
+
+
+On the reverse page we put our battle-honours--Mons, Le Cateau,
+Crêpy-en-Valois, the Marne, the Aisne, La Bassée, the Defence of
+Ypres.[28]
+
+We beat the Staff on the sprouts, but the Staff countered by
+appropriating the piper.
+
+Work dwindled until it became a farce. One run for each despatch rider
+every third day was the average. St Jans was not the place we should
+have chosen for a winter resort. Life became monotonous, and we all with
+one accord began applying for commissions. Various means were used to
+break the monotony. Grimers, under the Skipper's instructions, began to
+plant vegetables for the spring, but I do not think he ever got much
+beyond mustard and cress. On particularly unpleasant days we were told
+off to make fascines. N'Soon assisted the Quartermaster-Sergeant. Cecil
+did vague things with the motor-lorry. I was called upon to write the
+Company's War Diary. Even the Staff became restless and took to
+night-walks behind the trenches. If it had not been for the generous
+supply of "days off" that the Skipper allowed us, we should by February
+have begun to gibber.
+
+Despatches were of two kinds--ordinary and priority. "Priority"
+despatches could only be sent by the more important members of the
+Staff. They were supposed to be important, were marked "priority" in the
+corner, and taken at once in a hurry. Ordinary despatches went by the
+morning and evening posts. During the winter a regular system of
+motor-cyclist posts was organised right through the British Area. A
+message could be sent from Neuve Eglise to Chartres in about two days.
+Our posts formed the first or last stage of the journey. The morning
+post left at 7.30 A.M., and the evening at 3.30 P.M. All the units of
+the division were visited.
+
+If the roads were moderately good and no great movements of troops were
+proceeding, the post took about 1-1/4 hours; so the miserable postman
+was late either for breakfast or for tea. It was routine work pure and
+simple. After six weeks we knew every stone in the roads. The postman
+never came under fire. He passed through one village which was
+occasionally shelled, but, while I was with the Signal Company, the
+postman and the shells never arrived at the village at the same time.
+There was far more danger from lorries and motor ambulances than from
+shells.
+
+As for the long line of "postmen" that stretched back into the dim
+interior of France--it was rarely that they even heard the guns. When
+they did hear them, they would, I am afraid, pluck a racing helmet from
+their pockets, draw the ear-flaps well down over their ears, bend down
+over their racing handle-bars, and sprint for dear life. Returning
+safely to Abbéville, they would write hair-raising accounts of the
+dangers they had passed through to the motor-cycling papers. It is only
+right that I should here once and for all confess--there is no finer
+teller of tall stories than the motor-cyclist despatch rider....
+
+From December to February the only time I was under shell fire was late
+in December, when the Grand Attack was in full train. A certain brigade
+headquarters had taken refuge inconsiderately in advanced dug-outs. As I
+passed along the road to them some shrapnel was bursting a quarter of a
+mile away. So long was it since I had been under fire that the noise of
+our own guns disturbed me. In the spring, after I had left the Signal
+Company, the roads were not so healthy. George experienced the delights
+of a broken chain on a road upon which the Germans were registering
+accurately with shrapnel. Church, a fine fellow, and quite the most
+promising of our recruits, was killed in his billet by a shell when
+attached to a brigade.
+
+Taking the post rarely meant just a pleasant spin, because it rained in
+Flanders from September to January.
+
+One day I started out from D.H.Q. at 3.30 P.M. with the afternoon post,
+and reached the First Brigade well up to time. Then it began to rain, at
+first slightly, and then very heavily indeed, with a bagful of wind. On
+a particularly open stretch of road--the rain was stinging sharply--the
+engine stopped. With a heroic effort I tugged the bicycle through some
+mud to the side of a shed, in the hope that when the wind changed--it
+did not--I might be under cover. I could not see. I could not grip--and
+of course I could not find out what the matter was.
+
+After I had been working for about half an hour the two artillery
+motor-cyclists came along. I stopped them to give me a hand and to do as
+much work as I could possibly avoid doing myself while preserving an
+appearance of omniscience.
+
+We worked for an hour or more. It was now so dark that I could not
+distinguish one motor-cyclist from another. The rain rained faster than
+it had ever rained before, and the gale was so violent that we could
+scarcely keep our feet. Finally, we diagnosed a complaint that could not
+be cured by the roadside. So we stopped working, to curse and admire
+the German rockets.
+
+There was an estaminet close by. It had appeared shut, but when we began
+to curse a light shone in one of the windows. So I went in and settled
+to take one of the artillery motor-cycles and deliver the rest of my
+quite unimportant despatches. It would not start. We worked for twenty
+minutes in the rain vainly, then a motor-cyclist turned up from the
+nearest brigade to see what had become of me,--the progress of the post
+is checked over the wire. We arranged matters--but then neither his
+motor-cycle nor the motor-cycle of the second artillery motor-cyclist
+would start. It was laughable. Eventually we got the brigade despatch
+rider started with my report.
+
+A fifth motor-cyclist, who discreetly did not stop his engine, took my
+despatches back to "the Div." The second artillery motor-cycle we
+started after quarter of an hour's prodigious labour. The first and mine
+were still obstinate, so he and I retired to the inn, drank brandy and
+hot water, and conversed amiably with madame.
+
+Madame, who together with innumerable old men and children inhabited the
+inn, was young and pretty and intelligent--black hair, sallow and
+symmetrical face, expressive mouth, slim and graceful limbs. Talking
+the language, we endeavoured to make our forced company pleasant. That
+other despatch rider, still steaming from the stove, sat beside a
+charming Flemish woman, and endeavoured, amid shrieks of laughter, to
+translate the jokes in an old number of 'London Opinion.'
+
+A Welsh lad came in--a perfect Celt of nineteen, dark and lithe, with a
+momentary smile and a wild desire to see India. Then some Cheshires
+arrived. They were soaked and very weary. One old reservist staggered to
+a chair. We gave him some brandy and hot water. He chattered
+unintelligibly for a moment about his wife and children. He began to
+doze, so his companion took him out, and they tottered along after their
+company.
+
+A dog of no possible breed belonged to the estaminet. Madame called him
+"Automobile Anglais," because he was always rushing about for no
+conceivable reason.
+
+We were sorry when at 9.50 the lorry came for the bicycles. Our second
+driver was an ex-London cabby, with a crude wit expressed in impossible
+French that our hostess delightfully parried. On the way back he told me
+how he had given up the three taxis he had owned to do "his bit," how
+the other men had laughed at him because he was so old, how he had met
+a prisoner who used to whistle for the taxis in Russell Square. We
+talked also of the men in the trenches, of fright, and of the end of the
+war. We reached D.H.Q. about 10.30, and after a large bowl of porridge I
+turned in.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] The soldier's contemptuous expression for the inhabitants of the
+civilian world.
+
+[26] I retired with some haste from Flanders the night after the Germans
+first began to use gas. Militant chemistry may have altered the British
+soldier's convictions.
+
+[27] I have left out the usual monotonous epithet. Any soldier can
+supply it.
+
+[28] To these may now be added--St Eloi, Hill 60, the Second Battle of
+Ypres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+BEHIND THE LINES.
+
+
+I had intended to write down a full description of the country
+immediately behind our present line. The Skipper, for fear we should
+become stale, allowed us plenty of leave. We would make little
+expeditions to Béthune for the baths, spend an afternoon riding round
+Armentières, or run over to Poperinghe for a chop. We even arranged for
+a visit to the Belgian lines, but that excursion was forbidden by a new
+order. Right through the winter we had "unrivalled opportunities"--as
+the journalists would say--of becoming intimate with that strip of
+Flanders which extends from Ypres to Béthune. Whether I can or may
+describe it is a matter for care. A too affectionate description of the
+neighbourhood of Wulverghem, for instance, would be unwise. But I see no
+reason why I should not state as a fact that a most excellent dry
+Martini could be obtained in Ypres up to the evening of April 22.
+
+Wretched Ypres has been badly over-written. Before the war it was a
+pleasant city, little visited by travellers because it lay on a badly
+served branch line. The inhabitants tell me it was never much troubled
+with tourists. One burgher explained the situation to me with a comical
+mixture of sentiment and reason.
+
+"You see, sir, that our Cathedral is shattered and the Cloth Hall a
+ruin. May those devils, the dirty Germans, roast in Hell! But after the
+war we shall be the richest city in Belgium. All England will flock to
+Ypres. Is it not a monstrous cemetery? Are there not woods and villages
+and farms at which the brave English have fought like lions to earn for
+themselves eternal fame, and for the city an added glory? The good God
+gives His compensations after great wars. There will be many to buy our
+lace and fill our restaurants."
+
+Mr John Buchan and Mr Valentine Williams and others have "written up"
+Ypres. The exact state of the Cloth Hall at any given moment is the
+object of solicitude. The shattered Belgian homes have been described
+over and over again. The important things about Ypres have been left
+unsaid.
+
+Near the station there was a man who really could mix cocktails. He was
+no blundering amateur, but an expert with the subtlest touch. And in the
+Rue de Lille a fashionable dressmaker turned her _atelier_ into a
+tea-room. She used to provide coffee or chocolate, or even tea, and the
+most delicious little cakes. Of an afternoon you would sit on
+comfortable chairs at a neat table covered with a fair cloth and talk to
+your hostess. A few hats daintily remained on stands, but, as she said,
+they were last year's hats, unworthy of our notice.
+
+A pleasant afternoon could be spent on the old ramparts. We were there,
+as a matter of fact, to do a little building-up and clearing-away when
+the German itch for destruction proved too strong for their more
+gentlemanly feelings. We lay on the grass in the sun and smoked our
+pipes, looking across the placid moat to Zillebeke Vyver, Verbranden
+Molen, and the slight curve of Hill 60. The landscape was full of
+interest. Here was shrapnel bursting over entirely empty fields. There
+was a sapper repairing a line. The Germans were shelling the town, and
+it was a matter of skill to decide when the lumbersome old shell was
+heard exactly where it would fall. Then we would walk back into the town
+for tea and look in at that particularly enterprising grocer's in the
+Square to see his latest novelties in tinned goods.
+
+From Ypres the best road in Flanders runs by Vlamertinghe to Poperinghe.
+It is a good macadam road, made, doubtless by perfidious Albion's money,
+just before the war.
+
+Poperinghe has been an age-long rival of Ypres. Even to-day its
+inhabitants delight to tell you the old municipal scandals of the larger
+town, and the burghers of Ypres, if they see a citizen of Poperinghe in
+their streets, believe he has come to gloat over their misfortunes.
+Ypres is an Edinburgh and Poperinghe a Glasgow. Ypres was
+self-consciously "old world" and loved its buildings. Poperinghe is
+modern, and perpetrated a few years ago the most terrible of town halls.
+There are no cocktails in Poperinghe, but there is good whisky and most
+excellent beer.
+
+I shall never forget my feelings when one morning in a certain
+wine-merchant's cellar I saw several eighteen-gallon casks of Bass's
+Pale Ale. I left Poperinghe in a motor-ambulance, and the Germans
+shelled it next day, but my latest advices state that the ale is still
+intact.
+
+Across the road from the wine-merchant's is a delectable tea-shop. There
+is a tea-shop at Bailleul, the "Allies Tea-Rooms." It was started early
+in March. It is full of bad blue china and inordinately expensive. Of
+the tea-shop at Poperinghe I cannot speak too highly. There is a vast
+variety of the most delicious cakes. The proprietress is pleasant and
+her maids are obliging. It is also cheap. I have only one fault to find
+with it--the room is small. Infantry officers walk miles into Poperinghe
+for their tea and then find the room crowded with those young subalterns
+who supply us with our bully. They bring in bulldogs and stay a long
+time.
+
+Dickebusch used to be a favourite Sunday afternoon's ride for the
+Poperinghe wheelers. They would have tea at the restaurant on the north
+of Dickebusch Vyver, and afterwards go for a row in the little
+flat-bottomed boats, accompanied, no doubt, by some nice dark Flemish
+girls. The village, never very pleasant, is now the worse for wear. I
+remember it with no kindly feelings, because, having spent a night there
+with the French, I left them in the morning too early to obtain a
+satisfactory meal, and arrived at Headquarters too late for any
+breakfast.
+
+Not far from Dickebusch is the Desolate Chateau. Before the war it was a
+handsome place, built by a rich coal-merchant from Lille. I visited it
+on a sunny morning. At the southern gate there was a little black and
+shapeless heap fluttering a rag in the wind. I saluted and passed on,
+sick at heart. The grounds were pitted with shell-holes: the
+cucumber-frames were shattered. Just behind the chateau was a wee
+village of dug-outs. Now they are slowly falling in. And the chateau
+itself?
+
+It had been so proud of its finery, its pseudo-Greek columns, and its
+rich furnishings. Battered and confused--there is not a room of it which
+is not open to the wind from the sea. The pictures lie prostrate on the
+floor before their ravisher. The curtains are torn and faded. The papers
+of its master are scattered over the carpet and on the rifled desk. In
+the bedroom of its mistress her linen has been thrown about wildly; yet
+her two silver brushes still lie on the dressing-table. Even the
+children's room had been pillaged, and the books, torn and defaced, lay
+in a rough heap.
+
+All was still. At the foot of the garden there was a little village half
+hidden by trees. Not a sound came from it. Away on the ridge miserable
+Wytschaete stood hard against the sky, a mass of trembling ruins. Then
+two soldiers came, and finding a boat rowed noisily round the tiny lake,
+and the shells murmured harshly as they flew across to Ypres. Some ruins
+are dead stones, but the broken houses of Flanders are pitifully
+alive--like the wounded men who lie between the trenches and cannot be
+saved....
+
+Half a mile south from Dickebusch are cross-roads, and the sign-post
+tells you that the road to the left is the road to Wytschaete--but
+Wytschaete faces Kemmel and Messines faces Wulverghem.
+
+I was once walking over the hills above Witzenhausen,--the cherries by
+the roadside were wonderful that year,--and coming into a valley we
+asked a man how we might best strike a path into the next valley over
+the shoulder of the hill. He said he did not know, because he had never
+been over the hill. The people of the next valley were strangers to him.
+When first I came to a sign-post that told me how to get to a village I
+could not reach with my life, I thought of those hills above
+Witzenhausen. From Wulverghem to Messines is exactly two kilometres. It
+is ludicrous.
+
+Again, one afternoon I was riding over the pass between Mont Noir and
+Mont Vidaigne. I looked to the east and saw in the distance the smoke of
+a train, just as from Harrow you might see the Scottish Express on the
+North-Western main line. For a moment I did not realise that the train
+was German, that the purpose of its journey was to kill me and my
+fellow-men. But it is too easy to sentimentalise, to labour the stark
+fact that war is a grotesque, irrational absurdity....
+
+Following the main road south from Dickebusch you cross the frontier and
+come to Bailleul, a town of which we were heartily sick before the
+winter was far gone. In peace it would be once seen and never
+remembered. It has no character, though I suppose the "Faucon" is as
+well known to Englishmen now as any hotel in Europe. There are better
+shops in Béthune and better cafés in Poperinghe. Of the "Allies
+Tea-Rooms" I have already written.
+
+Bailleul is famous for one thing alone--its baths. Just outside the town
+is a large and modern asylum that contains a good plunge-bath for the
+men and gorgeous hot baths for officers. There are none better behind
+the line. Tuesdays and Fridays were days of undiluted joy.
+
+Armentières is sprawling and ugly and full of dirt--a correct and
+middle-class town that reminded me of Bristol. In front of it are those
+trenches, of which many tales wandered up and down the line. Here the
+Christmas truce is said to have been prolonged for three weeks or more.
+Here the men are supposed to prefer their comfortable trenches to their
+billets, though when they "come out" they are cheered by the Follies and
+the Fancies. On this section of the line is the notorious Plugstreet
+Wood, that show-place to which all distinguished but valuable visitors
+are taken. Other corps have sighed for the gentle delights of this
+section of the line....
+
+South-west from Armentières the country is as level as it can be. It is
+indeed possible to ride from Ypres to Béthune without meeting any hill
+except the slight ascent from La Clytte. Steenwerck, Erquinghem, Croix
+du Bac, and, farther west, Merris and Vieux Berquin, have no virtue
+whatsoever. There is little country flatter and uglier than the country
+between Bailleul and Béthune.
+
+One morning Huggie, Cecil, and I obtained leave to visit Béthune and the
+La Bassée district. It was in the middle of January, three months after
+we had left Beuvry. We tore into Bailleul and bumped along the first
+mile of the Armentières road. That mile is without any doubt the most
+excruciatingly painful _pavé_ in the world. We crossed the railway and
+raced south. The roads were good and there was little traffic, but the
+sudden apparition of a motor-lorry round a sharp corner sent that other
+despatch rider into the ditch. Estaires, as always, produced much
+grease. It began to rain, but we held on by La Gorgue and Lestrem,
+halting only once for the necessary café-cognac.
+
+We were stopped for our passes at the bridge into Béthune by a private
+of the London Scottish. I rejoiced exceedingly, and finding Alec, took
+him off to a bath and then to the restaurant where I had breakfasted
+when first we came to Béthune. The meal was as good as it had been three
+months before, and the flapper as charming.[29] After lunch we had our
+hair cut. Then Cecil took us to the little blue-and-white café for tea.
+She did play the piano, but two subalterns of the less combatant type
+came in and put us to flight. A corporal is sometimes at such a
+disadvantage.
+
+We rode along the canal bank to Beuvry Station, and found that our
+filthy old quarters had been cleaned up and turned into an Indian
+dressing-station. We went on past the cross-roads at Gorre, where an
+Indian battalion was waiting miserably under the dripping trees. The sun
+was just setting behind some grey clouds. The fields were flooded with
+ochreous water. Since last I had been along the road the country had
+been "searched" too thoroughly. One wall of 1910 farm remained. Chickens
+pecked feebly among the rest of it.
+
+Coming into Festubert I felt that something was wrong. The village had
+been damnably shelled--that I had expected--and there was not a soul to
+be seen. I thought of the father and mother and daughter who, returning
+to their home while we were there in October, had wept because a fuse
+had gone through the door and the fireplace and all their glass had been
+broken. Their house was now a heap of nothing in particular. The mirror
+I had used lay broken on the top of about quarter of a wall. Still
+something was wrong, and Huggie, who had been smiling at my puzzled
+face, said gently in an off-hand way--
+
+"Seen the church?"
+
+That was it! The church had simply disappeared. In the old days riding
+up from Gorre the fine tower of the church rose above the houses at the
+end of the street. The tower had been shelled and had fallen crashing
+through the roof.
+
+We met a sapper coming out of a cottage. He was rather amused at our
+sentimental journey, and warned us that the trenches were considerably
+nearer the village than they had been in our time. We determined to push
+on as it was now dusk, but my engine jibbed, and we worked on it in the
+gloom among the dark and broken houses. The men in the trenches roused
+themselves to a sleepless night, and intermittent rifle-shots rang out
+in the damp air.
+
+We rode north to the Estaminet de l'Epinette, passing a road which
+forking to the right led to a German barricade. The estaminet still
+lived, but farther down the road the old house which had sheltered a
+field ambulance was a pile of rubbish. On we rode by La Couture to
+Estaires, where we dined, and so to St Jans Cappel....
+
+Do you know what the Line means? When first we came to Landrecies the
+thought of the Frontier as something strong and stark had thrilled us
+again and again, but the Frontier was feeble and is nothing. A man of
+Poperinghe told me his brother was professor, his son was serving, his
+wife and children were "over there." He pointed to the German lines. Of
+his wife and children he has heard nothing for four months. Some of us
+are fighting to free "German" Flanders, the country where life is dark
+and bitter. Those behind our line, however confident they may be, live
+in fear, for if the line were to retire a little some of them would be
+cast into the bitter country. A day will come "when the whole line will
+advance," and the welcome we shall receive then from those who have come
+out of servitude!... There are men and women in France who live only for
+that day, just as there are those in this country who would welcome the
+day of death, so that they might see again those they love....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You may have gathered from my former letters that no friction took
+place between the professional and amateur soldiers of the Signal
+Company. I have tried all through my letters to give you a very truthful
+idea of our life, and my account would not be complete without some
+description of the Signal Company and its domestic affairs.
+
+Think for a moment of what happened at the beginning of August. More
+than a dozen 'Varsity men were thrown like Daniels into a den of
+mercenaries. We were awkwardly privileged persons--full corporals with a
+few days' service. Motor-cycling gave superlative opportunities of
+freedom. Our duties were "flashy," and brought us into familiar contact
+with officers of rank. We were highly paid, and thought to have much
+money of our own. In short, we who were soldiers of no standing
+possessed the privileges that a professional soldier could win only
+after many years' hard work.
+
+Again, it did not help matters that our Corps was a Corps of intelligent
+experts who looked down on the ordinary "Tommy," that our Company had
+deservedly the reputation of being one of the best Signal Companies in
+the Army--a reputation which has been enhanced and duly rewarded in the
+present war. These motor-cyclists were not only experimental
+interlopers. They might even "let down" the Company.
+
+We expected jealousy and unpleasantness, which we hoped to overcome by
+hard work. We found a tactful kindness that was always smoothing the
+rough way, helping us amusedly, and giving us more than our due, and a
+thorough respect where respect was deserved. It was astonishing, but
+then we did not know the professional soldier. During the winter there
+was a trifle of friction over cooking, the work of the Signal Office,
+and the use and abuse of motor-cycles. It would have been a
+poor-spirited company if there had been none. But the friction was
+transitory, and left no acid feeling.
+
+I should like to pay my compliments to a certain commanding officer, but
+six months' work under him has convinced me that he does not like
+compliments. Still, there remains that dinner at the end of the war, and
+then...!
+
+The Sergeant-Major frightened us badly at first. He looked so much like
+a Sergeant-Major, and a Sergeant-Major is more to be feared than the
+C.O., or the General, or the A.P.M., or anybody else in this
+disciplinary world. He can make life Hell or Heaven or a judicious
+compromise. Our Sergeant-Major believed in the judicious compromise with
+a tendency towards Heaven. When any question arose between professional
+and amateur, he dealt with it impartially. At other times he was
+inclined to let us work out our own salvation. I have always had a
+mighty respect for the Sergeant-Major, but have never dared tell him so.
+Perhaps he will read this.
+
+The "Quarter-Bloke"[30] was a jewel. He was suddenly called upon to keep
+us supplied with things of which he had never even heard the names. He
+rose to the occasion like a hero or Mr Selfridge's buyer. Never did he
+pass by an unconsidered trifle. One day a rumour went round that we
+might get side-cars. That was enough for the Quarter-Bloke. He picked up
+every large-sized tyre he thought might come in useful. The side-cars
+came. There was a rush for tyres. The Quarter-Bloke did not rush. He
+only smiled.
+
+His great triumph was the affair of the leather jackets. A maternal
+Government thought to send us out leather jackets. After tea the Q.-B.
+bustled in with them. We rode out with them the next morning. The 2nd
+Corps had not yet received theirs. We were the first motor-cyclists in
+our part of the world to appear in flaring chrome. The Q.-B. smiled
+again.
+
+I always think the Quarter-Bloke is wasted. He ought to be put in charge
+of the Looting Department of a large invading army. Do not
+misunderstand me. The Q.-B. never "looted." He never stepped a
+hair's-breadth outside those regulations that hedge round the
+Quartermaster. He was just a man with a prophetic instinct, who, while
+others passed blindly by, picked up things because they might come in
+useful some day--and they always did. Finally, the Q.-B. was
+companionable. He could tell a good story, and make merry decorously, as
+befitted a Company Quartermaster-Sergeant.
+
+Of the other sergeants I will make no individual mention. We took some
+for better, and some for worse, but they were all good men, who knew
+their job.
+
+Then there was "Ginger," the cook. I dare not describe his personal
+appearance lest I should meet him again--and I want to--but it was
+remarkable. So was his language. One of us had a fair gift that way, and
+duels were frequent, but "Ginger" always had the last word. He would
+keep in reserve a monstrously crude sulphurous phrase with a sting of
+humour in its tail, and, when our fellow had concluded triumphantly with
+an exotic reference to Ginger's hereditary characteristics, Ginger would
+hesitate a moment, as if thinking, and then out with _it_. Obviously
+there was no more to be said.
+
+I have ever so much more to tell about the Signal Company in detail and
+dialogue. Perhaps some day I shall have the courage to say it, but I
+shall be careful to hide about whom I am writing....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The "commission fever," which we had caught on the Aisne and, more
+strongly, at Beuvry, swept over us late in January. Moulders, who had
+lost his own company and joined on to us during the Retreat, had retired
+into the quietude of the A.S.C. Cecil was selected to go home and train
+the despatch riders of the New Armies.
+
+There were points in being "an officer and a gentleman." Dirt and
+discomfort were all very well when there was plenty of work to do, and
+we all decided that every officer should have been in the ranks, but
+despatch-riding had lost its savour. We had become postmen. Thoughts of
+the days when we had dashed round picking-up brigades, had put
+battalions on the right road, and generally made ourselves conspicuous,
+if not useful, discontented us. So we talked it over.
+
+Directing the operations of a very large gun seemed a good job. There
+would not be much moving to do, because monster guns were notoriously
+immobile. Hours are regular; the food is good, and can generally be
+eaten in comparative safety. If the gun had a very long range it would
+be quite difficult to hit. Unfortunately gunnery is a very technical
+job, and requires some acquaintance with Algebra. So we gave up the
+idea.
+
+We did not dote on the cavalry, for many reasons. First, when cavalry is
+not in action it does nothing but clean its stables and exercise its
+horses. Second, if ever we broke through the German lines the cavalry
+would probably go ahead of anybody else. Third, we could not ride very
+well, and the thought of falling off in front of our men when they were
+charging daunted us.
+
+The sappers required brains, and we had too great an admiration for the
+infantry to attempt commanding them. Besides, they walked and lived in
+trenches.
+
+Two of us struck upon a corps which combined the advantages of every
+branch of the service. We drew up a list of each other's qualifications
+to throw a sop to modesty, sent in our applications, and waited. At the
+same time we adopted a slight tone of hauteur towards those who were not
+potential officers.
+
+One night after tea "Ginger" brought in the orders. I had become a
+gentleman, and, saying good-bye, I walked down into the village and
+reported myself to the officer commanding the Divisional Cyclists. I was
+no longer a despatch rider but a very junior subaltern.
+
+I had worked with the others for nearly seven months--with Huggie, who
+liked to be frightened; with George the arch scrounger; with Spuggy, who
+could sing the rarest songs; with Sadders, who is as brave as any man
+alive; with N'Soon, the dashing, of the tender skin; with Fat Boy, who
+loves "sustaining" food and dislikes frost; with Grimers and Cecil, best
+of artificers; with Potters and Orr and Moulders and the Flapper.
+
+I cannot pay them a more sufficient tribute than the tribute of the
+Commander-in-Chief:--
+
+"Carrying despatches and messages at all hours of the day and night, in
+every kind of weather, and often traversing bad roads blocked with
+transport, they have been conspicuously successful in maintaining an
+extraordinary degree of efficiency in the service of communications....
+No amount of difficulty or danger has ever checked the energy and ardour
+which has distinguished their corps throughout the operations."
+
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] I cannot remember the name of the restaurant. Go to the north-east
+corner of the Square and turn down a lane to your right. It is the
+fourth or fifth house on your right. In Béthune there is also, of
+course, the big hotel where generals lunch. If you find the company of
+generals a little trying go to the flapper's restaurant.
+
+[30] Company Quartermaster-Sergeant, now a Sergeant-Major.
+
+[Transcriber's Notes:
+
+page 56: Comma changed to period in "La Cateau. A good many"
+
+page 71: "off" changed to "of". "a great meal of lunch"
+
+page 109: "reopend" to "reopened". "reopened with cheers."
+
+page 166: changed "BASSEE" to "BASSÉE"
+
+page 207: "that" changed to "than". "worse of surface than the main"
+
+page 213: word "for" inserted into text. "go for walks"
+
+page 246: period added after "Port."
+
+page 261: "distinguised" changed to "distinguished". "to which all
+           distinguished"]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures of a Despatch Rider, by W. H. L. Watson
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Adventures Of A Despatch Rider, by Captain W.H.L. Watson.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Adventures of a Despatch Rider, by W. H. L. Watson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Adventures of a Despatch Rider
+
+Author: W. H. L. Watson
+
+Release Date: October 14, 2005 [EBook #16868]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF A DESPATCH RIDER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Emmy and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
+
+
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+
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+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/cover.jpg"><img src="./images/cover-tb.jpg" alt="Cover" title="Cover" /></a></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg i]</span><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg ii]</span><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii"></a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg iii]</span><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii"></a></p>
+
+
+<h1>Adventures of</h1>
+<h1>A Despatch Rider</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">Captain</span> W.H.L. WATSON</h2>
+
+<div class="center"><br /><br /><br /><i>WITH MAPS</i></div>
+
+
+<div class="center"><br /><br />William Blackwood and Sons<br />
+Edinburgh and London<br /><br />
+1915</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg iv]</span><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv"></a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg v]</span><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v"></a></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class='center'><i><span class="smcap">to</span></i></div>
+
+<div class="center"><i>THE PERFECT MOTHER,</i></div>
+
+<div class="center"><i><span class="smcap">my own</span>.</i>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div><a name="route" id="route"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/map1.jpg"><img src="./images/map1-tb.jpg" alt="Route taken by Fifth Division" title="Route taken by Fifth Division" /></a></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg vi]</span><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi"></a><span class='pagenum'>[Pg vii]</span><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii"></a></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>A LETTER</h2>
+
+<h2>BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>To</i> 2nd Lieut.</span> <span class="smcap">R.B. Whyte,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">1st Black Watch,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">B.E.F.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Robert</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Do you remember how in the old days we used to talk about my first book?
+Of course it was to be an Oxford novel full of clever little
+character-sketches&mdash;witty but not unkind: of subtle and pleasurable
+hints at our own adventures, for no one had enjoyed Balliol and the city
+of Oxford so hugely: of catch-words that repeated would bring back the
+thrills and the laughter&mdash;<i>Psych. Anal.</i> and <i>Steady, Steady!</i> of names
+crammed with delectable memories&mdash;the Paviers', Cloda's Lane, and <span class='pagenum'>[Pg viii]</span><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii"></a>the
+notorious Square and famous Wynd: of acid phrases, beautifully put, that
+would show up once and for all those dear abuses and shams that go to
+make Oxford. It was to surpass all Oxford Novels and bring us all
+eternal fame.</p>
+
+<p>You remember, too, the room? It was stuffy and dingy and the pictures
+were of doubtful taste, but there were things to drink and smoke. The
+imperturbable Ikla would be sitting in his chair pulling at one of his
+impossibly luxurious pipes. You would be snorting in another&mdash;and I
+would be holding forth ... but I am starting an Oxford novelette already
+and there is no need. For two slightly senior contemporaries of ours
+have already achieved fame. The hydrangeas have blossomed. "The Home"
+has been destroyed by a Balliol tongue. The flower-girl has died her
+death. The Balliol novels have been written&mdash;and my first book is this.</p>
+
+<p>We have not even had time to talk it over properly. I saw you on my
+week's leave in December, but then I had not thought of making a book.
+Finally, after three months in the trenches you came home in August. I
+was in Ireland and <span class='pagenum'>[Pg ix]</span><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix"></a>you in Scotland, so we met at Warrington just after
+midnight and proceeded to staggering adventures. Shall we ever forget
+that six hours' talk, the mad ride and madder breakfast with old Peter
+M'Ginn, the solitary hotel at Manchester and the rare dash to London?
+But I didn't tell you much about my book.</p>
+
+<p>It is made up principally of letters to my mother and to you. My mother
+showed these letters to Mr Townsend Warner, my old tutor at Harrow, and
+he, who was always my godfather in letters, passed them on until they
+have appeared in the pages of 'Maga.' I have filled in the gaps these
+letters leave with narrative, worked the whole into some sort of
+connected account, and added maps and an index.</p>
+
+<p>This book is not a history, a military treatise, an essay, or a scrap of
+autobiography. It has no more accuracy or literary merit than letters
+usually possess. So I hope you will not judge it too harshly. My only
+object is to try and show as truthfully as I can the part played in this
+monstrous war by a despatch rider during the months from August 1914 to
+February <span class='pagenum'>[Pg x]</span><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x"></a>1915. If that object is gained I am content.</p>
+
+<p>Because it is composed of letters, this book has many faults.</p>
+
+<p>Firstly, I have written a great deal about myself. That is inevitable in
+letters. My mother wanted to hear about me and not about those whom she
+had never met. So do not think my adventures are unique. I assure you
+that if any of the other despatch riders were to publish their letters
+you would find mine by comparison mild indeed. If George now could be
+persuaded...!</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, I have dwelt at length upon little personal matters. It may
+not interest you to know when I had a pork-chop&mdash;though, as you now
+realise, on active service a pork-chop is extremely important&mdash;but it
+interested my mother. She liked to know whether I was having good and
+sufficient food, and warm things on my chest and feet, because, after
+all, there was a time when I wanted nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, all letters are censored. This book contains nothing but the
+truth, but not the whole truth. When I described things that were
+actually happening round me, I had to be exceedingly careful&mdash;and when,
+as in the first two or three chapters, my letters were written several
+weeks after the events, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg xi]</span><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi"></a>something was sure to crop up in the meantime
+that unconsciously but definitely altered the memory of experiences....</p>
+
+<p>We have known together two of the people I have mentioned in this
+book&mdash;Alec and Gibson. They have both advanced so far that we have lost
+touch with them. I had thought that it would be a great joy to publish a
+first book, but this book is ugly with sorrow. I shall never be able to
+write "Alec and I" again&mdash;and he was the sweetest and kindest of my
+friends, a friend of all the world. Never did he meet a man or woman
+that did not love him. The Germans have killed Alec. Perhaps among the
+multitudinous Germans killed there are one or two German Alecs. Yet I am
+still meeting people who think that war is a fine bracing thing for the
+nation, a sort of national week-end at Brighton.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was Gibson, who proved for all time that nobody made a better
+soldier than the young don&mdash;and those whose names do not come into this
+book....</p>
+
+<p>Robert, you and I know what to think of this Brighton theory. We are
+only just down from Oxford, and perhaps things strike us a little more
+passionately than they should.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg xii]</span><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii"></a></p>
+
+<p>You have seen the agony of war. You have seen those miserable people
+that wander about behind the line like pariah dogs in the streets. You
+know what is behind "Tommy's invincible gaiety." Let us pray together
+for a time when the publishing of a book like this will be regarded with
+fierce shame.</p>
+
+<p>So long and good luck!</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 35em;">Ever yours,</span></p>
+
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">William</span>.</div>
+
+<div>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">P</span><span class="smcap">irbright Huts</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">1/10/15.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<p>The day after I had written this letter the news came to me that Robert
+Whyte had been killed. The letter must stand&mdash;I have not the heart to
+write another.</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span style="margin-left: 23.5em;">W.H.L.W.</span><br /></div>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">P</span><span class="smcap">Pirbright Huts.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg xiii]</span><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg xiv]</span><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='right'>CHAP.</td>
+<td align='left'></td>
+<td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td>
+<td align='left'>ENLISTING</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td>
+<td align='left'>THE JOURNEY TO THE FRONT</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_12'>12</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td>
+<td align='left'>THE BATTLE OF MONS</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_26'>26</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td>
+<td align='left'>THE BATTLE OF LE CATEAU</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_40'>40</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td>
+<td align='left'>THE GREAT RETREAT</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_51'>51</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td>
+<td align='left'>OVER THE MARNE TO THE AISNE</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_76'>76</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td>
+<td align='left'>THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_105'>105</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td>
+<td align='left'>THE MOVE TO THE NORTH</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_140'>140</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td>
+<td align='left'>ROUND LA BASSÉE</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_167'>167</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td>
+<td align='left'>THE BEGINNING OF WINTER</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_198'>197</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td>
+<td align='left'>ST JANS CAPPEL</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td>
+<td align='left'>BEHIND THE LINES</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_253'>253</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LIST OF MAPS.</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="List of Maps">
+<tr><td align='left'></td>
+<td align='left'>PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>ROUTE TAKEN BY FIFTH DIVISION</td>
+<td align='left'><a href='#route'><i>At beginning</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>ROUND MONS</td>
+<td align='left'><a href='#Page_25'>25</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>THE MARNE (LAGNY TO CH&Acirc;TEAU-THIERRY)</td>
+<td align='left'><a href='#Page_87'>87</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>THE AISNE (SOISSONS TO VAILLY)</td>
+<td align='left'><a href='#Page_104'>104</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>ROUND LA BASS&Eacute;E</td>
+<td align='left'><a href='#Page_166'>166</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>YPRES TO LA BASS&Eacute;E</td>
+<td align='left'><a href='#Page_197'>197</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>LINE OF RETREAT AND ADVANCE</td>
+<td align='left'><a href='#retreat'><i>At end</i></a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 1]</span><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>Adventures of A Despatch Rider.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>ENLISTING</h3>
+
+
+<p>At 6.45 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> on Saturday, July 25, 1914, Alec and I determined
+to take part in the Austro-Servian War. I remember the exact minute,
+because we were standing on the "down" platform of Earl's Court Station,
+waiting for the 6.55 through train to South Harrow, and Alec had just
+remarked that we had ten minutes to wait. We had travelled up to London,
+intending to work in the British Museum for our "vivas" at Oxford, but
+in the morning it had been so hot that we had strolled round Bloomsbury,
+smoking our pipes. By lunch-time we had gained such an appetite that we
+did not feel <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 2]</span><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>like work in the afternoon. We went to see Elsie Janis.</p>
+
+<p>The evening papers were full of grave prognostications. War between
+Servia and Austria seemed inevitable. Earl's Court Station inspired us
+with the spirit of adventure. We determined to take part, and debated
+whether we should go out as war correspondents or as orderlies in a
+Servian hospital. At home we could talk of nothing else during dinner.
+Ikla, that wisest of all Egyptians, mildly encouraged us, while the
+family smiled.</p>
+
+<p>On Sunday we learned that war had been declared. Ways and means were
+discussed, but our great tennis tournament on Monday, and a dance in the
+evening, left us with a mere background of warlike endeavour. It was
+vaguely determined that when my "viva" was over we should go and see
+people of authority in London....</p>
+
+<p>On the last day of July a few of us met together in Gibson's rooms,
+those neat, white rooms in Balliol that overlook St Giles. Naymier, the
+Pole, was certain that Armageddon was coming. He proved it conclusively
+in the Quad with the aid of large maps and a dissertation on potatoes.
+He also showed us the probable course of the war. We lived in strained
+excitement. Things were too big to grasp. It was just <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 3]</span><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>the other day
+that 'The Blue Book,' most respectable of Oxford magazines, had
+published an article showing that a war between Great Britain and
+Germany was almost unthinkable. It had been written by an undergraduate
+who had actually been at a German university. Had the multitudinous
+Anglo-German societies at Oxford worked in vain? The world came crashing
+round our ears. Naymier was urgent for an Oxford or a Balliol Legion&mdash;I
+do not remember which&mdash;but we could not take him seriously. Two of us
+decided that we were physical cowards, and would not under any
+circumstances enlist. The flower of Oxford was too valuable to be used
+as cannon-fodder.</p>
+
+<p>The days passed like weeks. Our minds were hot and confused. It seemed
+that England must come in. On the afternoon of the fourth of August I
+travelled up to London. At a certain club in St James's there was little
+hope. I walked down Pall Mall. In Trafalgar Square a vast, serious crowd
+was anxiously waiting for news. In Whitehall Belgians were doing their
+best to rouse the mob. Beflagged cars full of wildly gesticulating
+Belgians were driving rapidly up and down. Belgians were haranguing
+little groups of men. Everybody remained quiet but perturbed.</p>
+
+<p>War was a certainty. I did not wish to <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 4]</span><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>be a spectator of the scenes
+that would accompany its declaration, so I went home. All the night in
+my dreams I saw the quiet, perturbed crowds.</p>
+
+<p>War was declared. All those of us who were at Balliol together
+telephoned to one another so that we might enlist together. Physical
+coward or no physical coward&mdash;it obviously had to be done. Teddy and
+Alec were going into the London Scottish. Early in the morning I started
+for London to join them, but on the way up I read the paragraph in which
+the War Office appealed for motor-cyclists. So I went straight to
+Scotland Yard. There I was taken up to a large room full of benches
+crammed with all sorts and conditions of men. The old fellow on my right
+was a sign-writer. On my left was a racing motor-cyclist. We waited for
+hours. Frightened-looking men were sworn in and one phenomenally grave
+small boy. Later I should have said that a really fine stamp of man was
+enlisting. Then they seemed to me a shabby crew.</p>
+
+<p>At last we were sent downstairs, and told to strip and array ourselves
+in moderately dirty blue dressing-gowns. Away from the formality of the
+other room we sang little songs, and made the worst jokes in the
+world&mdash;being continually interrupted by an irritable sergeant, whom we
+called "dearie."<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 5]</span><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a> One or two men were feverishly arguing whether certain
+physical deficiencies would be passed. Nobody said a word of his reason
+for enlisting except the sign-writer, whose wages had been low.</p>
+
+<p>The racing motor-cyclist and I were passed one after another, and,
+receiving warrants, we travelled down to Fulham. Our names, addresses,
+and qualifications were written down. To my overwhelming joy I was
+marked as "very suitable." I went to Great Portland Street, arranged to
+buy a motor-cycle, and returned home. That evening I received a telegram
+from Oxford advising me to go down to Chatham.</p>
+
+<p>I started off soon after breakfast, and suffered three punctures. The
+mending of them put despatch-riding in an unhealthy light. At Rochester
+I picked up Wallace and Marshall of my college, and together we went to
+the appointed place. There we found twenty or thirty enlisted or
+unenlisted. I had come only to make inquiries, but I was carried away.
+After a series of waits I was medically examined and passed. At 5.45
+<span class="smcap">p.m.</span> I kissed the Book, and in two minutes I became a corporal
+in the Royal Engineers. During the ceremony my chief sensation was one
+of thoroughgoing panic.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning four of us, who were linguists, were packed off to the
+War Office.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 6]</span><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a> We spent the journey in picturing all the ways we might be
+killed, until, by the time we reached Victoria, there was not a single
+one of us who would not have given anything to un-enlist. The War Office
+rejected us on the plea that they had as many Intelligence Officers as
+they wanted. So we returned glumly.</p>
+
+<p>The next few days we were drilled, lectured, and given our kit. We began
+to know each other, and make friends. Finally, several of us, who wanted
+to go out together, managed by slight misstatements to be put into one
+batch. We were chosen to join the 5th Division. The Major in command
+told us&mdash;to our great relief&mdash;that the Fifth would not form part of the
+first Expeditionary Force.</p>
+
+<p>I remember Chatham as a place of heat, intolerable dirt, and a bad sore
+throat. There we made our first acquaintance with the army, which we
+undergraduates had derided as a crowd of slavish wastrels and
+empty-headed slackers. We met with tact and courtesy from the mercenary.
+A sergeant of the Sappers we discovered to be as fine a type of man as
+any in the wide earth. And we marvelled, too, at the smoothness of
+organisation, the lack of confusing hurry....</p>
+
+<p>We were to start early on Monday morn<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 7]</span><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>ing. My mother and sister rushed
+down to Chatham, and my sister has urgently requested me to mention in
+"the book" that she carried, with much labour, a large and heavy pair of
+ski-ing boots. Most of the others had enlisted like myself in a hurry.
+They did not see "their people" until December.</p>
+
+<p>All of us were made to write our names in the visitors' book, for, as
+the waiter said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They ain't nobodies now, but in these 'ere times yer never knows what
+they may be."</p>
+
+<p>Then, when we had gone in an ear-breaking splutter of exhausts, he
+turned to comfort my mother&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Pore young fellers! Pore young fellers! I wonder if any of 'em will
+return."</p>
+
+<p>That damp chilly morning I was very sleepy and rather frightened at the
+new things I was going to do. I imagined war as a desperate continuous
+series of battles, in which I should ride along the trenches
+picturesquely haloed with bursting shell, varied by innumerable
+encounters with Uhlans, or solitary forest rides and immense tiring
+treks over deserted country to distant armies. I wasn't quite sure I
+liked the idea of it all. But the sharp morning air, the interest in
+training a new motor-cycle in the way it should go, the unexpected
+popping-up <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 8]</span><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>and grotesque salutes of wee gnome-like Boy Scouts, soon
+made me forget the war. A series of the kind of little breakdowns you
+always have in a collection of new bikes delayed us considerably, and
+only a race over greasy setts through the southern suburbs, over
+Waterloo Bridge and across the Strand, brought us to Euston just as the
+boat-train was timed to start. In the importance of our new uniforms we
+stopped it, of course, and rode joyfully from one end of the platform to
+the other, much to the agitation of the guard, while I posed
+delightfully against a bookstall to be photographed by a patriotic
+governess.</p>
+
+<p>Very grimy we sat down to a marvellous breakfast, and passed the time
+reading magazines and discussing the length of the war. We put it at
+from three to six weeks. At Holyhead we carefully took our bikes aboard,
+and settled down to a cold voyage. We were all a trifle apprehensive at
+our lack of escort, for then, you will remember, it had not yet been
+proved how innocuous the German fleet is in our own seas.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Ireland was a disappointment. Everybody was dirty and unfriendly,
+staring at us with hostile eyes. Add Dublin grease, which beats the
+Belgian, and a crusty garage pro<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 9]</span><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>prietor who only after persuasion
+supplied us with petrol, and you may be sure we were glad to see the
+last of it. The road to Carlow was bad and bumpy. But the sunset was
+fine, and we liked the little low Irish cottages in the twilight. When
+it was quite dark we stopped at a town with a hill in it. One of our men
+had a brick thrown at him as he rode in, and when we came to the inn we
+didn't get a gracious word, and decided it was more pleasant not to be a
+soldier in Ireland. The daughter of the house was pretty and passably
+clean, but it was very grimly that she had led me through an immense
+gaudy drawing-room disconsolate in dust wrappings, to a little room
+where we could wash. She gave us an exiguous meal at an extortionate
+charge, and refused to put more than two of us up; so, on the advice of
+two gallivanting lancers who had escaped from the Curragh for some
+supper, we called in the aid of the police, and were billeted
+magnificently on the village.</p>
+
+<p>A moderate breakfast at an unearthly hour, a trouble with the starting
+up of our bikes, and we were off again. It was about nine when we turned
+into Carlow Barracks.</p>
+
+<p>The company sighed with relief on seeing us. We completed the
+establishment on mobilisation. Our two "artificers," Cecil and Grimers,
+had already arrived. We were <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 10]</span><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>overjoyed to see them. We realised that
+what they did not know about motor-cycles was not worth knowing, and we
+had suspected at Chatham what we found afterwards to be true, that no
+one could have chosen for us pleasanter comrades or more reliable
+workers.</p>
+
+<p>A fine breakfast was soon prepared for us and we begun looking round.
+The position should have been a little difficult&mdash;a dozen or so 'Varsity
+men, very fresh from their respective universities, thrown as corporals
+at the head of a company of professional soldiers. We were determined
+that, whatever vices we might have, we should not be accused of "swank."
+The sergeants, after a trifle of preliminary stiffness, treated us with
+fatherly kindness, and did all they could to make us comfortable and
+teach us what we wanted to learn.</p>
+
+<p>Carlow was a fascinating little town. The National Volunteers still
+drilled just behind the barracks. It was not wise to refer to the
+Borderers or to Ulster, but the war had made all the difference in the
+world. We were to represent Carlow in the Great War. Right through the
+winter Carlow never forgot us. They sent us comforts and cigarettes and
+Christmas Puddings. When the 5th Signal Company returns, Carlow will go
+mad.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 11]</span><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a></p>
+
+<p>My first "official" ride was to Dublin. It rained most of the way there
+and all the way back, but a glow of patriotism kept me warm. In Dublin I
+went into a little public-house for some beer and bread and cheese. The
+landlord told me that though he wasn't exactly a lover of soldiers,
+things had changed now. On my return I was given lunch in the Officers'
+Mess, for nobody could consider their men more than the officers of our
+company.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we were inoculated. At the time we would much rather have
+risked typhoid. We did not object to the discomfort, though two of us
+nearly fainted on parade the following morning&mdash;it was streamingly
+hot&mdash;but our farewell dinner was absolutely spoilt. Bottles of the best
+Moselle Carlow could produce were left untouched. Songs broke down in
+curses. It was tragic.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 12]</span><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE JOURNEY TO THE FRONT</h3>
+
+
+<p>We made a triumphant departure from Carlow, preceded down to the station
+by the band of the N.V. We were told off to prevent anybody entering the
+station, but all the men entered magnificently, saying they were
+volunteers, and the women and children rushed us with the victorious
+cry, "We've downed the p'lice." We steamed out of the station while the
+band played "Come back to Erin" and "God save Ireland," and made an
+interminable journey to Dublin. At some of the villages they cheered, at
+others they looked at us glumly. But the back streets of Dublin were
+patriotic enough, and at the docks, which we reached just after dark, a
+small, tremendously enthusiastic crowd was gathered to see us off.</p>
+
+<p>They sang songs and cheered, and cheered and sang songs. "I can
+generally bear the separation, but I don't like the leave-taking."<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 13]</span><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a> The
+boat would not go off. The crowd on the boat and the crowd on the wharf
+made patriotic noises until they were hoarse. At midnight our supporters
+had nearly all gone away. We who had seen our motor-cycles carefully
+hoisted on board ate the buns and apples provided by "Friends in Dublin"
+and chatted. A young gunner told me of all his amours, and they were
+very numerous. Still&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">For my uncle <i>Toby's</i> amours running all the way in my head,
+they had the same effect upon me as if they had been my
+own&mdash;I was in the most perfect state of bounty and  goodwill&mdash;</div>
+
+<p>So I set about finding a place for sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of the Divisional Headquarters Staff, with all their horses,
+were on the <i>Archimedes</i>, and we were so packed that when I tried to
+find a place to sleep I discovered there was not an inch of space left
+on the deck, so I passed an uncomfortable night on top of some
+excruciatingly hard ropes.</p>
+
+<p>We cast off about one in the morning. The night was horribly cold, and a
+slow dawn was never more welcomed. But day brought a new horror. The sun
+poured down on us, and the smell from the horses packed closely below
+was almost unbearable; <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 14]</span><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>while, worst of all, we had to go below to wash
+and to draw our rations.</p>
+
+<p>Then I was first introduced to bully. The first tin tastes delicious and
+fills you rapidly. You never actually grow to dislike it, and many times
+when extra hungry I have longed for an extra tin. But when you have
+lived on bully for three months (we have not been served out with fresh
+meat more than a dozen times altogether),<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> how you long for any little
+luxuries to vary the monotony of your food!</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the third day we passed a French destroyer with a
+small prize in tow, and rejoiced greatly, and towards evening we dropped
+anchor off Havre. On either side of the narrow entrance to the docks
+there were cheering crowds, and we cheered back, thrilled, occasionally
+breaking into the soldier's anthem, "It's a long, long way to
+Tipperary."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>We disembarked at a secluded wharf, and after waiting about for a couple
+of hours or so&mdash;we had not then learned to wait&mdash;we were marched off to
+a huge dim warehouse, where we were given gallons of the most delicious
+hot coffee, and bought scrumptious little cakes.</p>
+
+<p>It was now quite dark, and, for what <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 15]</span><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>seemed whole nights, we sat
+wearily waiting while the horses were taken off the transport. We made
+one vain dash for our quarters, but found only another enormous
+warehouse, strangely lit, full of clattering waggons and restive horses.
+We watched with wonder a battery clank out into the night, and then
+returned sleepily to the wharf-side. Very late we found where we were to
+sleep, a gigantic series of wool warehouses. The warehouses were full of
+wool and the wool was full of fleas. We were very miserable, and a
+little bread and wine we managed to get hold of hardly cheered us at
+all. I feared the fleas, and spread a waterproof sheet on the bare
+stones outside. I thought I should not get a wink of sleep on such a
+Jacobean resting-place, but, as a matter of fact, I slept like a top,
+and woke in the morning without even an ache. But those who had risked
+the wool&mdash;&mdash;!</p>
+
+<p>We breakfasted off the strong, sweet tea that I have grown to like so
+much, and some bread, butter, and chocolate we bought off a smiling old
+woman at the warehouse gates. Later in the morning we were allowed into
+the town. First, a couple of us went into a caf&eacute; to have a drink, and
+when we came out we found our motor-cycles garlanded with flowers by two
+admiring flappers. Everywhere we went we were the gods of a very <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 16]</span><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>proper
+worship, though the shopkeepers in their admiration did not forget to
+charge. We spent a long, lazy day in lounging through the town, eating a
+lot of little meals and in visiting the public baths&mdash;the last bath I
+was to have, if I had only known it, for a month. A cheery, little,
+bustling town Havre seemed to us, basking in a bright sunshine, and the
+hopes of our early overwhelming victory. We all stalked about,
+prospective conquerors, and talked fluently of the many defects of the
+German army.</p>
+
+<p>Orders came in the afternoon that we were to move that night. I sat up
+until twelve, and gained as my reward some excellent hot tea and a bit
+of rather tough steak. At twelve everybody was woken up and the company
+got ready to move. We motor-cyclists were sent off to the station.
+Foolishly I went by myself. Just outside what I thought was the station
+I ran out of petrol. I walked to the station and waited for the others.
+They did not come. I searched the station, but found nothing except a
+cavalry brigade entraining. I rushed about feverishly. There was no one
+I knew, no one who had heard anything of my company. Then I grew
+horribly frightened that I should be left behind. I pelted back to the
+old warehouses, but found everybody had left two hours ago. I <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 17]</span><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>thought
+the company must surely have gone by now, and started in my desperation
+asking everybody I knew if they had seen anything of the company.
+Luckily I came across an entraining officer, who told me that the
+company were entraining at "Point Six-Hangar de Laine,"&mdash;three miles
+away. I simply ran there, asking my way of surly, sleepy sentries,
+tripping over ropes, nearly falling into docks.</p>
+
+<p>I found the Signal Company. There was not a sign of our train. So
+Johnson took me on his carrier back to the station I had searched in
+such fear. We found the motor-cycle, Johnson gave me some petrol, and we
+returned to Point Six. It was dawn when the old train at last rumbled
+and squeaked into the siding.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know how long we took to entrain, I was so sleepy. But the sun
+was just rising when the little trumpet shrilled, the long train creaked
+over the points, and we woke for a moment to murmur&mdash;By Jove, we're off
+now,&mdash;and I whispered thankfully to myself&mdash;Thank heaven I found them at
+last.</p>
+
+<p>We were lucky enough to be only six in our compartment, but, as you
+know, in a French IIIme there is very little room, while the seats are
+fiercely hard. And we had not yet been served out with blankets.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 18]</span><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a> Still,
+we had to stick it for twenty-four hours. Luckily the train stopped at
+every station of any importance, so, taking the law into our own hands,
+we got out and stretched our legs at every opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>We travelled <i>vi&acirc;</i> Rouen and Amiens to Landrecies. The Signal Company
+had a train to itself. Gradually we woke up to find ourselves travelling
+through extraordinarily pretty country and cheering crowds. At each
+level-crossing the cur&eacute; was there to bless us. If we did not stop the
+people threw in fruit, which we vainly endeavoured to catch. A halt, and
+they were round us, beseeching us for souvenirs, loading us with fruit,
+and making us feel that it was a fine thing to fight in a friendly
+country.</p>
+
+<p>At Rouen we drew up at a siding, and sent porters scurrying for bread
+and butter and beer, while we loaded up from women who came down to the
+train with all sorts of delicious little cakes and sweets. We stopped,
+and then rumbled slowly towards Amiens. At St Roche we first saw
+wounded, and heard, I do not know with what truth, that four aviators
+had been killed, and that our General, Grierson, had died of heart
+failure. At Ham they measured me against a lamp-post, and ceremoniously
+marked the place. The next time I passed through Ham I had no time to
+look for the mark! It began to <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 19]</span><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>grow dark, and the trees standing out
+against the sunset reminded me of our two lines of trees at home. We
+went slowly over bridges, and looked fearfully from our windows for
+bursting shells. Soon we fell asleep, and were wakened about midnight by
+shouted orders. We had arrived at Landrecies, near enough the Frontier
+to excite us.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder if you realise at home what the Frontier meant to us at first?
+We conceived it as a thing guarded everywhere by intermittent patrols of
+men staring carefully towards Germany and Belgium in the darkness, a
+thing to be defended at all costs, at all times, to be crossed with
+triumph and recrossed with shame. We did not understand what an
+enormous, incredible thing modern war was&mdash;how it cared nothing for
+frontiers, or nations, or people.</p>
+
+<p>Very wearily we unloaded our motor bicycles and walked to the barracks,
+where we put down our kit and literally feel asleep, to be wakened for
+fatigue work.</p>
+
+<p>We rose at dawn, and had some coffee at a little <i>estaminet</i>,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> where a
+middle-aged dame, horribly arch, cleaned my canteen for me, "pour
+l'amour de toi." We managed an excellent breakfast of bacon and eggs
+before establishing the Signal Office at the <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 20]</span><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>barracks. A few of us rode
+off to keep touch with the various brigades that were billeted round.
+The rest of us spent the morning across the road at an inn drinking much
+wine-and-water and planning out the war on a forty-year-old map.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon I went out with two others to prospect some roads, very
+importantly. We were rather annoyed to lose our way out of the town, and
+were very short with some inquisitive small boys who stood looking over
+our shoulders as we squatted on the grass by the wayside studying our
+maps.</p>
+
+<p>We had some tea at a mad village called Hecq. All the inhabitants were
+old, ugly, smelly, and dirty; and they crowded round us as we devoured a
+magnificent omelette, endeavouring to incite us to do all sorts of
+things to the German women if ever we reached Germany. We returned home
+in the late afternoon to hear rumours of an advance next day.</p>
+
+<p>Three of us wandered into the Square to have a drink. There I first
+tried a new pipe that had been given me. The one pipe I brought with me
+I had dropped out of the train between Amiens and Landrecies. It had
+been quite a little tragedy, as it was a pipe for which I had a great
+affection. It had been my companion in Switzerland and Paris.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 21]</span><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a></p>
+
+<p>Coming back from the Square I came across an excited crowd. It appears
+that an inoffensive, rather buxom-looking woman had been walking round
+the Square when one of her breasts cooed and flew away. We shot three
+spies at Landrecies.</p>
+
+<p>I hung round the Signal Office, nervous and excited, for "a run." The
+night was alive with the tramp of troops and the rumble of guns. The old
+108th passed by&mdash;huge good-natured guns, each drawn by eight gigantic
+plough-horses. I wonder if you can understand&mdash;the thrilling excitement
+of waiting and listening by night in a town full of troops.</p>
+
+<p>At midnight I took my first despatch. It was a dark, starless night;
+very misty on the road. From the brigade I was sent on to an
+ambulance&mdash;an unpleasant ride, because, apart from the mist and the
+darkness, I was stopped every few yards by sentries of the West Kents, a
+regiment which has now about the best reputation of any battalion out
+here. I returned in time to snatch a couple of hours of sleep before we
+started at dawn for Belgium.</p>
+
+<p>When the Division moves we ride either with the column or go in advance
+to the halting-place. That morning we rode with the column, which meant
+riding three-quarters of a mile or so and then waiting for <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 22]</span><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>the
+main-guard to come up,&mdash;an extraordinarily tiring method of getting
+along.</p>
+
+<p>The day (August 21) was very hot indeed, and the troops who had not yet
+got their marching feet suffered terribly, even though the people by the
+wayside brought out fruit and eggs and drinks. There was murmuring when
+some officers refused to allow their men to accept these gifts. But a
+start had to be made some time, for promiscuous drinks do not increase
+marching efficiency. We, of course, could do pretty well what we liked.
+A little coffee early in the morning, and then anything we cared to ask
+for. Most of us in the evening discovered, unpleasantly enough,
+forgotten pears in unthought-of pockets.</p>
+
+<p>About 1.30 we neared Bavai, and I was sent on to find out about
+billeting arrangements, but by the time they were completed the rest had
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time we were hutted in the Square. Spuggy found a "friend,"
+and together we obtained a good wash. The people were vociferously
+enthusiastic. Even the chemist gave us some "salts" free of charge.</p>
+
+<p>My first ride from Bavai began with a failure, as, owing to belt-slip, I
+endeavoured vainly to start for half an hour (or so it seemed) in the
+midst of an interested but sympathetic <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 23]</span><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>populace. A smart change saw me
+tearing along the road to meet with a narrow escape from untimely death
+in the form of a car, which I tried to pass on the wrong side. In the
+evening we received our first batch of pay, and dining magnificently at
+a hotel, took tearful leave of Huggie and Spuggy. They had been chosen,
+they said, to make a wild dash through to Li&eacute;ge. We speculated darkly on
+their probable fate. In the morning we learned that we had been hoaxed,
+and used suitable language.</p>
+
+<p>We slept uncomfortably on straw in a back yard, and rose again just
+before dawn. We breakfasted hastily at a caf&eacute;, and were off just as the
+sun had risen.</p>
+
+<p>Our day's march was to Dour, in Belgium, and for us a bad day's march it
+was. My job was to keep touch with the 14th Brigade, which was advancing
+along a parallel road to the west.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> That meant riding four or five
+miles across rough country roads, endeavouring to time myself so as to
+reach the 14th column just when the S.O. was passing, then back again to
+the Division, riding up and down the column until I found our captain.
+In the course of my riding that day I knocked down "a civvy" in Dour,
+and bent a foot-rest endeavouring to avoid a major, but that was all in
+the day's work.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 24]</span><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a></p>
+<p>The Signal Office was first established patriarchally with a table by
+the roadside, and thence I made my last journey that day to the 14th. I
+found them in a village under the most embarrassing attentions. As for
+myself, while I was waiting, a cur&eacute; photographed me, a woman rushed out
+and washed my face, and children crowded up to me, presenting me with
+chocolate and cigars, fruit and eggs, until my haversack was practically
+bursting.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned I found the S.O. had shifted to the station of Dour. We
+were given the waiting-room, which we made comfortable with straw.
+Opposite the station was a hotel where the Staff lived. It was managed
+by a curiously upright old man in a threadbare frock-coat, bright check
+trousers, and carpet slippers. Nadine, his pretty daughter, was
+tremulously eager to make us comfortable, and the two days we were at
+Dour we hung round the hotel, sandwiching omelettes and drink between
+our despatches.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 25]</span><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/map2.jpg"><img src="./images/map2-tb.jpg" alt="ROUND MONS" title="ROUND MONS" /></a></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 26]</span><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BATTLE OF MONS</h3>
+
+
+<p>We knew nothing of what was going on. There was a rumour that Namur had
+fallen, and I heard certain officers say we had advanced dangerously
+far. The cavalry was on our left and the Third Division on our right.
+Beyond the Third Division we had heard of the First Corps, but nothing
+of the French. We were left, to the best of our knowledge, a tenuous
+bulwark against the German hosts.</p>
+
+<p>The 14th Brigade had advanced by the Andregnies road to Elouges and the
+Canal. The 13th was our right brigade, and the 15th, at first in
+reserve, extended our line on the second day to Frameries. The Cyclists
+were reconnoitring north of the Canal.</p>
+
+<p>The roads round Dour were of the very worst <i>pav&eacute;</i>, and, if this were
+not enough, the few maps we had between us were useless. The villages of
+Waasmes, Paturages, and<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 27]</span><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a> Frameries were in the midst of such a network
+of roads that the map could not possibly be clear. If the country had
+been flat, we might at least have found our way by landmarks. It was
+not. The roads wandered round great slag-heaps, lost themselves in
+little valleys, ran into pits and groups of buildings. Each one tried to
+be exactly like all its fellows. Without a map to get from Elouges to
+Frameries was like asking an American to make his way from Richmond Park
+to Denmark Hill.</p>
+
+<p>About ten o'clock on the morning of August 23rd I was sent out to find
+General Gleichen, who was reported somewhere near Waasmes. I went over
+nightmare roads, uneven cobbles with great pits in them. I found him,
+and was told by him to tell the General that the position was
+unfortunate owing to a weak salient. We had already heard guns, but on
+my way back I heard a distant crash, and looked round to find that a
+shell had burst half a mile away on a slag-heap, between Dour and
+myself. With my heart thumping against my ribs I opened the throttle,
+until I was jumping at 40 m.p.h. from cobble to cobble. Then, realising
+that I was in far greater danger of breaking my neck than of being shot,
+I pulled myself together and slowed down to proceed sedately home.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 28]</span><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a></p>
+
+<p>The second time I went out to General Gleichen I found him a little
+farther back from his former position. This time he was on the railway.
+While I was waiting for a reply we had an excellent view of German guns
+endeavouring to bring down one of our aeroplanes. So little did we know
+of aeroplanes then, that the General was persuaded by his brigade-major
+to step back into shelter from the falling bits, and we all stared
+anxiously skywards, expecting every moment that our devoted aviator
+would be hit.</p>
+
+<p>That evening Huggie and I rode back to Bavai and beyond in search of an
+errant ammunition column. Eventually we found it and brought news of it
+back to H.Q. I shall never forget the captain reading my despatch by the
+light of my lamp, the waggons guarded by Dorsets with fixed bayonets
+appearing to disappear shadowy in the darkness. We showed the captain a
+short-cut that avoided Bavai, then left him. His horses were tired, but
+he was forced to push them on another ten miles to Dour. We got back at
+10, and found Nadine weeping. We questioned her, but she would not tell
+us why.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great battle very early the next morning, a running-about
+and set, anxious faces. We were all sent off in rapid succession. I was
+up early and managed to <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 29]</span><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>get a wash at the station-master's house, his
+wife providing me with coffee, which, much to my discomfiture, she
+liberally dosed with rum. At 6.30 Johnson started on a message to the
+15th Brigade. We never saw him again. At 9.15 three despatch riders who
+had gone to the 15th, George, Johnson, and Grimers, had not returned. I
+was sent. Two miles out I met George with Grimers' despatches. Neither
+of them had been able to find the 15th. I took the despatches and sent
+George back to report. I went down a road, which I calculated ought to
+bring me somewhere on the left of the 15th, who were supposed to be
+somewhere between Paturages and Frameries. There were two villages on
+hills, one on each side. I struck into the north end of the village on
+my left; there was no road to the one on my right.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> I came across a
+lot of disheartened stragglers retreating up the hill. I went a little
+farther and saw our own firing line a quarter of a mile ahead. There was
+a bit of shrapnel flying about, but not much. I struck back up the hill
+and came upon a crowd of fugitive infantry men, all belonging to the
+13th Brigade. At last I found General Cuthbert, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 30]</span><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>the Brigadier of the
+13th, sitting calmly on his horse watching the men pass. I asked him
+where the 15th was. He did not know, but told me significantly that our
+rallying-point was Athis.</p>
+
+<p>I rode a little farther, and came upon his signal officer. He stopped me
+and gave me a verbal message to the General, telling me that the 15th
+appeared to be cut off. As I had a verbal message to take back there was
+no need for me to go farther with my despatches, which, as it appeared
+later, was just as well. I sprinted back to Dour, picking my way through
+a straggling column of men sullenly retreating. At the station I found
+everybody packing up. The General received my message without a word,
+except one of thanks.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The right flank of the 13th has been badly turned.</p>
+
+<p>Most of our officers have been killed.</p>
+
+<p>Some companies of the K.O.S.B. are endeavouring to cover our
+retreat.</p></div>
+
+<p>We viciously smashed all the telegraph instruments in the office and cut
+all the wires. It took me some time to pack up my kit and tie it on my
+carrier. When I had finished, everybody had gone. I could hear their
+horses clattering up the street. Across the way Nadine stood weeping. A
+few women <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 31]</span><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>with glazed, resigned eyes, stood listlessly round her.
+Behind me, I heard the first shell crash dully into the far end of the
+town. It seemed to me I could not just go off. So I went across to
+Nadine and muttered "Nous reviendrons, Mademoiselle." But she would not
+look at me, so I jumped on my bicycle, and with a last glance round at
+the wrecked, deserted station, I rode off, shouting to encourage more
+myself than the others, "&Ccedil;a va bien."</p>
+
+<p>I caught up the General, and passed him to ride on ahead of the Signal
+Company. Never before had I so wished my engine to turn more slowly. It
+seemed a shame that we motor-cyclists should head the retreat of our
+little column. I could not understand how the men could laugh and joke.
+It was blasphemous. They ought to be cursing with angry faces,&mdash;at the
+least, to be grave and sorrowful.</p>
+
+<p>I was told that Divisional Headquarters would be established at
+Villers-Pol, a little country village about ten miles west of Bavai and
+eight miles south-east of Valenciennes. I rode to St Waast, a few miles
+out of Bavai, and, finding there a cavalry colonel (of the 2nd Life
+Guards, I think), gave him all the news. I hurried on to Jenlain,
+thinking I might be of some use to the troops on our <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 32]</span><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>right flank, but
+Jenlain was peaceful and empty. So I cut across low rolling downs to
+Villers-Pol. There was nobody there when I arrived. The sun was shining
+very brightly. Old women were sleeping at the doors; children were
+playing lazily on the road. Soon one or two motor-cyclists dribbled in,
+and about an hour later a section of the Signal Company arrived after a
+risky dash along country lanes. They outspanned, and we, as always, made
+for the inn.</p>
+
+<p>There was a mother in the big room. She was a handsome little woman of
+about twenty-four. Her husband was at the war. She asked me why we had
+come to Villers-Pol. I said we were retreating a little&mdash;pour attaquer
+le mieux&mdash;un mouvement strat&eacute;gique. She wept bitterly and loudly, "Ah,
+my baby, what will they do to us? They will kill you, and they will
+ill-treat me so that never again shall I be able to look my husband in
+the eyes&mdash;his brave eyes; but now perhaps they are closed in death!"
+There was an older, harsh-featured woman who rated the mother for her
+silliness, and, while we ate our omelette, the room was filled with the
+clamour of them until a dog outside began to howl. Then the mother went
+and sat down in a chair by the fire and stopped crying, but every now
+and then moaned and clasped her baby strongly to <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 33]</span><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>her breast, murmuring,
+"My poor baby, my poor baby, what shall we do?"</p>
+
+<p>We lounged about the place until a cavalry brigade came through. The
+General commandeered me to find his transport. This I did, and on the
+way back waited for the brigade to pass. Then for the first time I saw
+that many riderless horses were being led, that some of the horses and
+many of the men were wounded, and that one regiment of lancers was
+pathetically small. It was the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, that had charged the
+enemy's guns, to find them protected by barbed wire.</p>
+
+<p>Sick at heart I rode back into Villers-Pol, and found the Signal Company
+hastily harnessing up. Headquarters had been compelled to go farther
+back still&mdash;to St Waast, and there was nobody, so far as we knew,
+between us and the Germans. The order caught George with his gear down.
+We made a marvellously rapid repair, then went off at the trot. A mile
+out, and I was sent back to pick up our quartermaster and three others
+who were supposed to have been left behind. It was now quite dark. In
+the village I could not find our men, but discovered a field ambulance
+that did not know what to do. Their horses were dead tired, but I
+advised them strongly to get on. They took my advice, and I heard at
+Serches that <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 34]<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>they left Villers-Pol as the Germans</span><a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> entered it. They
+were pursued, but somehow got away in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>I went on, and at some cross-roads in a black forest came across a
+regiment of hussars. I told them where their B.H.Q. was, and their
+Colonel muttered resignedly,</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long way, but we shall never get our wounded horses there
+to-morrow." I put two more companies right, then came across a little
+body of men who were vainly trying to get a horse attached to a S.A.A.
+limber out of the ditch. It was a pitch-black night, and they were
+bravely endeavouring to do it without catching a glimpse of the horse. I
+gave them the benefit of my lamp until they had got the brute out. Two
+more bodies of stragglers I directed, and then pushed on rapidly to St
+Waast, where I found all the other motor-cyclists safe except Johnson.
+Two had come on carts, having been compelled to abandon their
+motor-cycles.</p>
+
+<p>George had been attached to the 14th. He had gone with them to the
+canal, and had been left there with the Cornwalls when the 14th had
+retired to its second position. At last nobody remained with him except
+a section. They were together in a hut, and outside he could hear the
+bullets singing.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 35]</span><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a> He noticed some queer-looking explosives in a corner,
+and asked what they were for. He was told they were to blow up the
+bridge over the canal, so decided it was time for him to quit, and did
+so with some rapidity under a considerable rifle fire. Then he was sent
+up to the Manchesters, who were holding a ready-made trench across the
+main road. As he rode up he tells me men shouted at him, "Don't go that
+way, it's dangerous," until he grew quite frightened; but he managed to
+get to the trench all right, slipped in, and was shown how to crawl
+along until he reached the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>N'Soon and Sadders were with the 13th. On the Sunday night they had to
+march to a new position more towards their right. The Signal Section
+went astray and remained silently on a byroad while their officer
+reconnoitred. On the main road between them and their lines were some
+lights rapidly moving&mdash;Germans in armoured motor-cars. They successfully
+rejoined, but in the morning there was something of a collision, and
+Sadders' bicycle was finished. He got hold of a push-bike alongside the
+waggons for some distance, finishing up on a limber.</p>
+
+<p>Spuggy was sent up to the trenches in the morning. He was under heavy
+shell fire when his engine seized up. His brigade was retreating, and he
+was in the rear of it, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 36]</span><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>so, leaving his bicycle, he took to his heels,
+and with the Germans in sight ran till he caught up a waggon. He
+clambered on, and so came into St Waast.</p>
+
+<p>I had not been in many minutes when I was sent off to our Army H.Q. at
+Bavai. It was a miserable ride. I was very tired, the road was full of
+transport, and my lamp would not give more than a feeble glimmer.</p>
+
+<p>I got to bed at 1 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> About 3.30 (on August 24) I was called
+and detailed to remain with the rear-guard. First I was sent off to find
+the exact position of various bodies posted on roads to stem the German
+advance. At one spot I just missed a shell-trap. A few minutes after I
+had left, some of the Manchesters, together with a body of the D.
+Cyclists who were stationed three miles or so out of St Waast, were
+attacked by a body of Jaegers, who appeared on a hill opposite.
+Foolishly they disclosed their position by opening rifle fire. In a few
+minutes the Jaegers went, and to our utter discomfiture a couple of
+field-guns appeared and fired point-blank at 750 yards. Luckily the
+range was not very exact, and only a few were wounded&mdash;those who retired
+directly backwards instead of transversely out of the shells' direction.</p>
+
+<p>The H.Q. of the rear-guard left St Waast <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 37]</span><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>about 5.30. It was cold and
+chilly. What happened I do not quite know. All I remember was that at a
+given order a battery would gallop off the road into action against an
+enemy we could not see. So to Bavai, where I was sent off with an
+important despatch for D.H.Q. I had to ride past the column, and
+scarcely had I gone half a mile when my back tyre burst. There was no
+time to repair it, so on I bumped, slipping all over the road. At
+D.H.Q., which of course was on the road, I borrowed some one else's
+bicycle and rode back by another road. On the way I came across Huggie
+filling up from an abandoned motor-lorry. I did likewise, and then tore
+into Bavai. A shell or two was bursting over the town, and I was nearly
+slaughtered by some infantrymen, who thought they were firing at an
+aeroplane. Dodging their bullets, I left the town, and eventually caught
+up the H.Q. of the rear-guard.</p>
+
+<p>It was now about 10.30. Until five the troops tramped on, in a scorching
+sun, on roads covered with clouds of dust. And most pitiful of all,
+between the rear-guard and the main body shuffled the wounded; for we
+had been forced to evacuate our hospital at Bavai. Our men were mad at
+retreating. The Germans had advanced on them in the closest order. Each
+fellow <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 38]</span><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>firmly believed he had killed fifty, and was perfectly certain
+we could have held our line to the crack of doom. They trudged and
+trudged. The women, who had cheerily given us everything a few days
+before, now with anxious faces timorously offered us water and fruit.</p>
+
+<p>Great ox-waggons full of refugees, all in their best clothes, came in
+from side-roads. None of them were allowed on the roads we were
+retreating along, so I suppose they were pushed across the German front
+until they fell into the Germans' hands.</p>
+
+<p>For us it was column-riding the whole day&mdash;half a mile or so, and then a
+halt,&mdash;heart-breaking work.</p>
+
+<p>I was riding along more or less by myself in a gap that had been left in
+the column. A cur&eacute; stopped me. He was a very tall and very thin young
+man with a hasty, frightened manner. Behind him was a flock of
+panic-stricken, chattering old women. He asked me if there was any
+danger. Not that he was afraid, he said, but just to satisfy his people.
+I answered that none of them need trouble to move. I was too ashamed to
+say we were retreating, and I had an eye on the congestion of the roads.
+I have sometimes wondered what that tall, thin cur&eacute;, with the sallow
+face and the frightened eyes, said about me when, not twelve hours
+later, the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 39]</span><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a> German advance-guard triumphantly defiled before him.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon we passed through Le Cateau, a bright little town,
+and came to the village of Reumont, where we were billeted in a large
+barn.</p>
+
+<p>We were all very confident that evening. We heard that we were holding a
+finely entrenched position, and the General made a speech&mdash;I did not
+hear it&mdash;in which he told us that there had been a great Russian
+success, and that in the battle of the morrow a victory for us would
+smash the Germans once and for all. But our captain was more
+pessimistic. He thought we should suffer a great disaster. Doubting, we
+snuggled down in the straw, and went soundly to sleep.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 40]</span><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BATTLE OF LE CATEAU</h3>
+
+
+<p>The principal thing about Le Cateau is that the soldiers pronounce it to
+rhyme with Waterloo&mdash;Leacatoo&mdash;and all firmly believe that if the French
+cavalry had come up to help us, as the Prussians came up at Waterloo,
+there would have been no Germans to fight against us now.</p>
+
+<p>It was a cold misty morning when we awoke, but later the day was fine
+enough. We got up, had a cheery and exiguous breakfast to distant,
+intermittent firing, then did a little work on our bicycles. I spent an
+hour or so watching through glasses the dim movement of dull bodies of
+troops and shrapnel bursting vaguely on the horizon. Then we were all
+summoned to H.Q., which were stationed about a mile out from Reumont on
+the Le Cateau road. In front of us the road dipped sharply and rose
+again over the brow of a hill about two miles <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 41]</span><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>away. On this brow,
+stretching right and left of the road, there was a line of poplars. On
+the slope of the hill nearer to us there were two or three field
+batteries in action. To the right of us a brigade of artillery was
+limbered up ready to go anywhere. In the left, at the bottom of the dip
+the 108th was in action, partially covered by some sparse bushes. A few
+ambulance waggons and some miscellaneous first-line transport were drawn
+up along the side of the road at the bottom of the dip. To the N.W. we
+could see for about four miles over low, rolling fields. We could see
+nothing to the right, as our view was blocked by a cottage and some
+trees and hedges. On the roof of the cottage a wooden platform had been
+made. On it stood the General and his Chief of Staff and our Captain.
+Four telephone operators worked for their lives in pits breast-high, two
+on each side of the road. The Signal Clerk sat at a table behind the
+cottage, while round him, or near him, were the motor-cyclists and
+cyclists.</p>
+
+<p>About the battle itself you know as much as I. We had wires out to all
+the brigades, and along them the news would come and orders would go.
+The &mdash;&mdash; are holding their position satisfactorily. Our flank is being
+turned. Should be very grateful for another battalion. We are under very
+heavy <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 42]</span><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>shell fire. Right through the battle I did not take a single
+message. Huggie took a despatch to the 13th, and returned under very
+heavy shrapnel fire, and for this was very properly mentioned in
+despatches.</p>
+
+<p>How the battle fluctuated I cannot now remember. But I can still see
+those poplars almost hidden in the smoke of shrapnel. I can still hear
+the festive crash of the Heavies as they fired slowly, scientifically,
+and well. From 9 to 12.30 we remained there kicking our heels,
+feverishly calm, cracking the absurdest jokes. Then the word went round
+that on our left things were going very badly. Two battalions were
+hurried across, and then, of course, the attack developed even more
+fiercely on our right.</p>
+
+<p>Wounded began to come through&mdash;none groaning, but just men with their
+eyes clenched and great crimson bandages.</p>
+
+<p>An order was sent to the transport to clear back off the road. There was
+a momentary panic. The waggons came through at the gallop and with them
+some frightened foot-sloggers, hanging on and running for dear life.
+Wounded men from the firing line told us that the shrapnel was
+unbearable in the trenches.</p>
+
+<p>A man came galloping up wildly from the Heavies. They had run out of
+fuses. Already we had sent urgent messages to the <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 43]</span><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>ammunition lorries,
+but the road was blocked and they could not get up to us. So Grimers was
+sent off with a haversack&mdash;mine&mdash;to fetch fuses and hurry up the
+lorries. How he got there and back in the time that he did, with the
+traffic that there was, I cannot even now understand.</p>
+
+<p>It was now about two o'clock, and every moment the news that we heard
+grew worse and worse, while the wounded poured past us in a continuous
+stream. I gave my water-bottle to one man who was moaning for water. A
+horse came galloping along. Across the saddle-bow was a man with a
+bloody scrap of trouser instead of a leg, while the rider, who had been
+badly wounded in the arm, was swaying from side to side.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour before the brigade on our right front had gone into
+action on the crest of the hill. Now they streamed back at the trot, all
+telling the tale&mdash;how, before they could even unlimber, shells had come
+crashing into them. The column was a lingering tragedy. There were teams
+with only a limber and without a gun. And you must see it to know what a
+twistedly pathetic thing a gun team and limber without a gun is. There
+were bits of teams and teams with only a couple of drivers. The faces of
+the men were awful. I smiled at one or two, but they shook their heads
+and <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 44]</span><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>turned away. One sergeant as he passed was muttering to himself, as
+if he were repeating something over and over again so as to learn it by
+rote&mdash;"My gun, my gun, my gun!"</p>
+
+<p>At this moment an order came from some one for the motor-cyclists to
+retire to the farm where we had slept the night. The others went on with
+the crowd, but I could not start my engine. After trying for five
+minutes it seemed to me absurd to retreat, so I went back and found that
+apparently nobody had given the order. The other motor-cyclists returned
+one by one as soon as they could get clear, but most of them were
+carried on right past the farm.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later there was a great screaming crash
+overhead&mdash;shrapnel. I ran to my bicycle and stood by waiting for orders.</p>
+
+<p>The General suggested mildly that we might change our headquarters.
+There was a second crash. We all retired about 200 yards back up the
+road. There I went to the captain in the middle of the traffic and asked
+him what I should do. He told us to get out of it as we could not do
+anything more&mdash;"You have all done magnificently"&mdash;then he gave me some
+messages for our subaltern. I shouted, "So long, sir," and left him, not
+knowing whether I should ever <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 45]</span><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>see him again. I heard afterwards that he
+went back when all the operators had fled and tried to get into
+communication with our Army H.Q.</p>
+
+<p>Just as I had started up my engine another shell burst about 100 yards
+to the left, and a moment later a big waggon drawn by two maddened
+horses came dashing down into the main street. They could not turn, so
+went straight into the wall of a house opposite. There was a dull crash
+and a squirming heap piled up at the edge of the road.</p>
+
+<p>I pushed through the traffic a little and came upon a captain and a
+subaltern making their way desperately back. I do not know who they
+were, but I heard a scrap of what they said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We must get back for it," said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall never return," replied the subaltern gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter," said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter," echoed the subaltern.</p>
+
+<p>But I do not think the gun could have been saved.</p>
+
+<p>About six of us collected in a little bunch at the side of the road. On
+our left we saw a line of infantry running. The road itself was
+impassable. So we determined to strike off to the right. I led the way,
+and though <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 46]</span><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>we had not the remotest conception whether we should meet
+British or German, we eventually found our way to 2nd Corps H.Q.</p>
+
+<p>I have only a dim remembrance of what happened there. I went into the
+signal-office and reported that, so far as I knew, the 5th Division was
+in flight along the Reumont-Saint-Quentin road.</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant in charge of the 2nd Corps Motor-cyclists offered us some
+hard-boiled eggs and put me in charge of our lot. Then off we went, and
+hitting the main road just ahead of our muddled column, halted at the
+desolate little village of Estr&eacute;es.</p>
+
+<p>It now began to rain.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the column came pouring past, so miserably and so slowly,&mdash;lorries,
+transport, guns, limbers, small batches of infantrymen, crowds of
+stragglers. All were cursing the French, for right through the battle we
+had expected the French to come up on our right wing. There had been a
+whole corps of cavalry a few miles away, but in reply to our urgent
+request for help their general had reported that his horses were too
+tired. How we cursed them and cursed them.</p>
+
+<p>After a weary hour's wait our subaltern came up, and, at my request,
+sent me to look for the captain. I found him about two miles this side
+of Reumont, endeavouring <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 47]</span><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>vainly to make some sort of ordered procession
+out of the almost comically patchwork medley. Later I heard that the
+last four hundred yards of the column had been shelled to destruction as
+it was leaving Reumont, and a tale is told&mdash;probably without truth&mdash;of
+an officer shooting the driver of the leading motor-lorry in a hopeless
+endeavour to get some ammunition into the firing line.</p>
+
+<p>I scooted back and told the others that our captain was still alive, and
+a little later we pushed off into the flood. It was now getting dark,
+and the rain, which had held off for a little, was pouring down.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, we halted at a tiny cottage, and the Signal Company outspanned.</p>
+
+<p>We tried to make ourselves comfortable in the wet by hiding under damp
+straw and putting on all available bits of clothing. But soon we were
+all soaked to the skin, and it was so dark that horses wandered
+perilously near. One hungry mare started eating the straw that was
+covering my chest. That was enough. Desperately we got up to look round
+for some shelter, and George, our champion "scrounger," discovered a
+chicken-house. It is true there were nineteen fowls in it. They died a
+silent and, I hope, a painless death.</p>
+
+<p>The order came round that the motor-cyclists were to spend the night at
+the <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 48]</span><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>cottage&mdash;the roads were utterly and hopelessly impassable&mdash;while
+the rest of the company was to go on. So we presented the company with a
+few fowls and investigated the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>It was a startling place. In one bedroom was a lunatic hag with some
+food by her side. We left her severely alone. Poor soul, we could not
+move her! In the kitchen we discovered coffee, sugar, salt, and onions.
+With the aid of our old Post Sergeant we plucked some of the chickens
+and put on a great stew. I made a huge basin full of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>The others, dead tired, went to sleep in a wee loft. I could not sleep.
+I was always seeing those wounded men passing, passing, and in my
+ear&mdash;like the maddening refrain of a musical comedy ditty&mdash;there was
+always murmuring&mdash;"We shall never return. It doesn't matter." Outside
+was the clink and clatter of the column, the pitiful curses of tired
+men, the groaning roar of the motor-lorries as they toiled up the slope.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Staff began to wander in one by one&mdash;on foot, exhausted and
+bedraggled. They loved the coffee, but only played with the chicken&mdash;I
+admit it was tough. They thought all was lost and the General killed.
+One murmured to another: "Magersfontein, Dour, and this&mdash;you've had some
+successful <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 49]</span><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>battles." And one went to sleep, but kept starting up, and
+giving a sort of strangled shout&mdash;"All gone! All gone!" When each had
+rested awhile he would ask gently for a little more coffee, rub his
+eyes, and disappear into the column to tramp through the night to Saint
+Quentin. It was the purest melodrama.</p>
+
+<p>And I, too tired to sleep, too excited to think, sat sipping thick
+coffee the whole night through, while the things that were happening
+soaked into me like petrol into a rag. About two hours before dawn I
+pulled myself together and climbed into the loft for forty minutes'
+broken slumber.</p>
+
+<p>An hour before dawn we wearily dressed. The others devoured cold stew,
+and immediately there was the faintest glimmering of light we went
+outside. The column was still passing,&mdash;such haggard, broken men! The
+others started off, but for some little time I could not get my engine
+to fire. Then I got going. Quarter of a mile back I came upon a little
+detachment of the Worcesters marching in perfect order, with a cheery
+subaltern at their head. He shouted a greeting in passing. It was
+Urwick, a friend of mine at Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>I cut across country, running into some of our cavalry on the way. It
+was just light enough for me to see properly when my <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 50]</span><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>engine jibbed. I
+cleaned a choked petrol pipe, lit a briar&mdash;never have I tasted anything
+so good&mdash;and pressed on.</p>
+
+<p>Very bitter I felt, and when nearing Saint Quentin, some French soldiers
+got in my way, I cursed them in French, then in German, and finally in
+good round English oaths for cowards, and I know not what. They looked
+very startled and recoiled into the ditch. I must have looked
+alarming&mdash;a gaunt, dirty, unshaven figure towering above my motor-cycle,
+without hat, bespattered with mud, and eyes bright and weary for want of
+sleep. How I hated the French! I hated them because, as I then thought,
+they had deserted us at Mons and again at Le Cateau; I hated them
+because they had the privilege of seeing the British Army in confused
+retreat; I hated them because their roads were very nearly as bad as the
+roads of the Belgians. So, wet, miserable, and angry, I came into Saint
+Quentin just as the sun was beginning to shine a little.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 51]</span><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GREAT RETREAT</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the morning of the 27th we draggled into Saint Quentin. I found the
+others gorged with coffee and cakes provided by a kindly Staff-Officer.
+I imitated them and looked around. Troops of all arms were passing
+through very wearily. The people stood about, listless and sullen.
+Everywhere proclamations were posted beseeching the inhabitants to bring
+in all weapons they might possess. We found the Signal Company, and rode
+ahead of it out of the town to some fields above a village called
+Castres. There we unharnessed and took refuge from the gathering storm
+under a half-demolished haystack. The Germans didn't agree to our
+remaining for more than fifty minutes. Orders came for us to harness up
+and move on. I was left behind with the H.Q.S., which had collected
+itself, and was sent a <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 52]</span><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>few minutes later to 2nd Corps H.Q. at Ham, a
+ride of about fifteen miles.</p>
+
+<p>On the way I stopped at an inn and discovered there three or four of our
+motor-cyclists, who had cut across country, and an officer. The
+officer<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> told us how he had been sent on to construct trenches at Le
+Cateau. It seems that although he enlisted civilian help, he had neither
+the time nor the men to construct more than very makeshift affairs,
+which were afterwards but slightly improved by the men who occupied
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes and I was on the road again. It was an easy run, something
+of a joy-ride until, nearing Ham, I ran into a train of motor-lorries,
+which of all the parasites that infest the road are the most difficult
+to pass. Luckily for me they were travelling in the opposite direction
+to mine, so I waited until they passed and then rode into Ham and
+delivered my message.</p>
+
+<p>The streets of Ham were almost blocked by a confused column retreating
+through it. Officers stationed at every corner and bend were doing their
+best to reduce it to some sort of order, but with little success.</p>
+
+<p>Returning I was forced into a byroad by the column, lost my way, took
+the wrong road out of the town, but managed in about <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 53]</span><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>a couple of hours
+to pick up the Signal Co., which by this time had reached the Chateau at
+Oleezy.</p>
+
+<p>There was little rest for us that night. Twice I had to run into Ham.
+The road was bad and full of miscellaneous transport. The night was
+dark, and a thick mist clung to the road. Returning the second time, I
+was so weary that I jogged on about a couple of miles beyond my turning
+before I woke up sufficiently to realise where I was.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning (the 28th) we were off before dawn. So tired were we
+that I remember we simply swore at each other for nothing at all. We
+waited, shivering in the morning cold, until the column was well on its
+way.</p>
+
+<p>At Oleezy the Division began to find itself. Look at the map and think
+for a moment what the men had done. On the 21st they had advanced from
+Landrecies to Bavai, a fair day's march on a blazing day. On the 22nd
+they had marched from Bavai to the Canal. From the morning of the 23rd
+to midday or later on the 24th they had fought hard. On the afternoon
+and evening of the 24th they had retired to the Bavai-Saint-Waast line.
+Before dawn on the morning of the 25th they had started off again and
+marched in column of route on <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 54]</span><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>another blazing day back to a position a
+few miles south of Le Cateau. The battle had begun as the sun rose on
+the 26th, and continued until three o'clock or later in the afternoon.
+They plodded through the darkness and the rain. No proper halt was made
+until midday of the 27th.</p>
+
+<p>The General, who had escaped, and the Staff worked with ferocious
+energy, as we very painfully knew. Battalions bivouacked in the open
+fields round Oleezy collected the stragglers that came in and
+reorganised themselves. The cavalry were between us and Saint Quentin.
+We were in communication with them by despatch rider. Trains full of
+French troops passed westwards over Oleezy bridge. There were, I
+believe, General d'Amade's two reserve divisions. We had walked away
+from the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>We rode after the column. On the way we passed a battalion of men who
+had been on outpost duty with nothing but a biscuit and a half apiece.
+They broke their ranks to snatch at some meat that had been dumped by
+the roadside, and gnawed it furiously as they marched along until the
+blood ran down from their chins on to their jackets.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget how our General saw a batch of Gordons and K.O.S.B.
+stragglers trudging listlessly along the road. He <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 55]</span><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>halted them. Some
+more came up until there was about a company in all, and with one piper.
+He made them form fours, put the piper at the head of them. "Now, lads,
+follow the piper, and remember Scotland"; and they all started off as
+pleased as Punch with the tired piper playing like a hero.</p>
+
+<p>Oving or the Fat Boy volunteered to take a message to a body of cavalry
+that was covering our rear. He found them, and then, being mapless (maps
+were very scarce in those days), he lost his way. There was no sun, so
+he rode in what he thought was the right direction, until suddenly he
+discovered that he was two kilometres from Saint Quentin. As the Germans
+were officially reported to be five miles south of the town he turned
+back and fled into the darkness. He slept that night at a cottage, and
+picked up the Division in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>I was sent on to fill up with petrol wherever I could find it. I was
+forced to ride on for about four miles to some cross-roads. There I
+found a staff-car that had some petrol to spare. It was now very hot, so
+I had a bit of a sleep on the dusty grass by the side of the road, then
+sat up to watch lazily the 2nd Corps pass.</p>
+
+<p>The troops were quite cheerful and on the whole marching well. There
+were a large <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 56]</span><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>number of stragglers, but the majority of them were not
+men who had fallen out, but men who had become separated from their
+battalions at Le Cateau. A good many were badly footsore. These were
+being crowded into lorries and cars.</p>
+
+<p>There was one solitary desolate figure. He was evidently a reservist, a
+feeble little man of about forty, with three days' growth on his chin.
+He was very, very tired, but was struggling along with an unconquerable
+spirit. I gave him a little bit of chocolate I had; but he wouldn't stop
+to eat it. "I can't stop. If I does, I shall never get there." So he
+chewed it, half-choking, as he stumbled along. I went a few paces after
+him. Then Captain Dillon came up, stopped us, and put the poor fellow in
+a staff-car and sent him along a few miles in solitary grandeur, more
+nervous than comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>Eventually the company came along and I joined. Two miles farther we
+came to a biggish town with white houses that simply glared with
+heat.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> My water-bottle was empty, so I humbly approached a good lady
+who was doling out cider and water at her cottage door. It did taste
+good! A little farther on I gave up my bicycle to Spuggy, who was riding
+in the cable-cart.</p>
+
+<p>We jolted along at about two miles an <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 57]</span><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>hour. For some time two spies
+under escort walked beside the limber. Unlike most spies they looked
+their part. One was tall and thin and handsome. The other was short and
+fat and ugly. The fear of death was on their faces, and the jeers of our
+men died in their mouths. They were marched along for two days until a
+Court could be convened. Then they were shot.</p>
+
+<p>Just before Noyon we turned off to the left and halted for half an hour
+at Landrimont, a little village full of big trees. We had omelettes and
+coffee at the inn, then basked in the sun and smoked. Noyon was
+unattractive. The people did not seem to care what happened to anybody.
+Perhaps we thought that, because we were very tired. Outside Noyon I
+dozed, then went off to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>When I awoke it was quite dark, and the column had halted. The order
+came for all except the drivers to dismount and proceed on foot. The
+bridge ahead was considered unsafe, so waggons went across singly.</p>
+
+<p>I walked on into the village, Pontoise. There were no lights, and the
+main street was illuminated only by the lanterns of officers seeking
+their billets. An A.S.C. officer gave me a lift. Our H.Q. were right the
+other end of the town in the Chateau of the wee hamlet called La
+Pommeraye. I found them, stumbled into a loft, and dropped down for a
+sleep.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 58]</span><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a></p>
+
+<p>We were called fairly late.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> George and I rode into Pontoise and
+"scrounged" for eggs and bread. These we took to a small and smelly
+cottage. The old woman of the cottage boiled our eggs and gave us
+coffee. It was a luxurious breakfast. I was looking forward to a slack
+lazy day in the sun, for we were told that we had for the moment
+outdistanced the gentle Germans. But my turn came round horribly soon,
+and I was sent off to Compi&egrave;gne with a message for G.H.Q., and orders to
+find our particularly elusive Div. Train. It was a gorgeous ride along a
+magnificent road, through the great forest, and I did the twenty odd
+miles in forty odd minutes.</p>
+
+<p>G.H.Q. was installed in the Palace. Everybody seemed very clean and
+lordly, and for a moment I was ashamed of my dirty, ragged, unshorn
+self. Then I realised that I was "from the Front"&mdash;a magic phrase to
+conjure with for those behind the line&mdash;and swaggered through long
+corridors.</p>
+
+<p>After delivering my message I went searching for the Div. Train. First,
+I looked round the town for it, then I had wind of it at the station,
+but at the station it had departed an hour or so before. I returned to
+G.H.Q., but there they knew nothing. I tried every road leading out of
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 59]</span><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>the town. Finally, having no map, and consequently being unable to make
+a really thorough search, I had a drink, and started off back.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned I found everybody was getting ready to move, so I packed
+up. This time the motor-cyclists rode in advance of the column. About
+two miles out I found that the others had dropped behind out of sight. I
+went on into Carlepont, and made myself useful to the Billeting Officer.
+The others arrived later. It seems there had been a rumour of Uhlans on
+the road, and they had come along fearfully.</p>
+
+<p>The troops marched in, singing and cheering. It was unbelievable what
+half a day's rest had done for them. Of course you must remember that we
+all firmly believed, except in our moments of deepest despondency,
+first, that we could have held the Germans at Mons and Le Cateau if the
+French had not "deserted" us, and second, that our retreat was merely a
+"mouvement strat&eacute;gique."</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing doing at the Signal Office, so we went and had some
+food&mdash;cold sausage and coffee. Our hostess was buxom and hilarious.
+There was also a young girl about the place, H&eacute;l&egrave;ne. She was of a middle
+size, serious and dark, with a mass of black lustreless hair. She could
+not have <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 60]</span><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>been more than nineteen. Her baby was put to bed immediately
+we arrived. We loved them both, because they were the first women we had
+met since Mons who had not wanted to know why we were retreating and had
+not received the same answer&mdash;"mouvement strat&eacute;gique pour attaquer le
+mieux." I had a long talk that night with H&eacute;l&egrave;ne as she stood at her
+door. Behind us the dark square was filled with dark sleeping soldiers,
+the noise of snoring and the occasional clatter of moving horses.
+Finally, I left her and went to sleep on the dusty boards of an attic in
+the Chateau.</p>
+
+<p>We were called when it was still dark and very cold (August 30). I was
+vainly trying to warm myself at a feeble camp fire when the order came
+to move off&mdash;without breakfast. The dawn was just breaking when we set
+out&mdash;to halt a hundred yards or so along. There we shivered for half an
+hour with nothing but a pipe and a scrap of chocolate that had got stuck
+at the bottom of my greatcoat pocket. Finally, the motor-cyclists, to
+their great relief, were told that they might go on ahead. The Grimers
+and I cut across a country to get away from the column. We climbed an
+immense hill in the mist, and proceeding by a devious route eventually
+bustled into Attichy, where we found a large and dirty inn containing
+nothing but some bread <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 61]</span><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>and jam. The column was scheduled to go ten
+miles farther, but "the situation being favourable" it was decided to go
+no farther. Headquarters were established by the roadside, and I was
+sent off to a jolly village right up on the hill to halt some sappers,
+and then back along the column to give the various units the names of
+their billets.</p>
+
+<p>We supped off the sizzling bacon and slept on the grass by the side of
+the road. That night George burned his Rudge. It was an accident, but we
+were none too sorry, for it had given much trouble. There were messages
+right through the night. At one in the morning I was sent off to a
+Chateau in the Forest of Compi&egrave;gne. I had no map, and it was a pure
+accident that I found my way there and back.</p>
+
+<p>The next day (Aug. 31) was a joyous ride. We went up and down hills to a
+calm, lazy little village, Haute Fontaine. There we took a wrong turning
+and found ourselves in a blackberry lane. It was the hottest,
+pleasantest of days, and forgetting all about the more serious
+things&mdash;we could not even hear the guns&mdash;we filled up with the softest,
+ripest of fruit. Three of us rode together, N'Soon, Grimers, and myself.
+I don't know how we found our way. We just wandered on through sleepy,
+cobbled villages, along the top of ridges with great misty views and <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 62]</span><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>by
+quiet streams. Just beyond a village stuck on to the side of a hill, we
+came to a river, and through the willows we saw a little church. It was
+just like the Happy Valley that's over the fields from Burford.</p>
+
+<p>We all sang anything we could remember as we rattled along. The bits of
+columns that we passed did not damp us, for they consisted only of
+transport, and transport can never be tragic&mdash;even in a retreat. The
+most it can do is to depress you with a sense of unceasing monotonous
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>About three o'clock we came to a few houses&mdash;B&eacute;thancourt. There was an
+omelette, coffee, and pears for us at the inn. The people were
+frightened.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Why are the English retreating? Are they defeated?</p>
+
+<p>No, it is only a strategical movement.</p>
+
+<p>Will the dirty Germans pass by here? We had better pack up
+our traps and fly.</p></div>
+
+<p>We were silent for a moment, then I am afraid I lied blandly.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Oh no, this is as far as we go.</p></div>
+
+<p>But I had reckoned without my host, a lean, wiry old fellow, a bit stiff
+about the knees. First of all he proudly showed me his soldier's
+book&mdash;three campaigns in Algeria. A crowd of smelly women pressed round
+us&mdash;luckily we had finished our meal&mdash;<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 63]</span><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>while with the help of a few
+knives and plates he explained exactly what a strategical movement was,
+and demonstrated to the satisfaction of everybody except ourselves that
+the valley we were in was obviously the place "pour reculer le mieux."</p>
+
+<p>We had been told that our H.O. were going to be at a place called
+B&eacute;thisy St Martin, so on we went. A couple of miles from B&eacute;thisy we came
+upon a billeting party of officers sitting in the shade of a big tree by
+the side of the road. Had we heard that the Germans were at Compi&egrave;gne,
+ten miles or so over the hill? No, we hadn't. Was it safe to go on into
+B&eacute;thisy? None of us had an idea. We stopped and questioned a "civvy"
+push-cyclist. He had just come from B&eacute;thisy and had seen no Germans. The
+officers started arguing whether or no they should wait for an escort.
+We got impatient and slipped on. Of course there was nothing in B&eacute;thisy
+except a wide-eyed population, a selection of smells, and a vast
+congregation of chickens. The other two basked on some hay in the sun,
+while I went back and pleased myself immensely by reporting to the
+officers who were timorously trotting along that there wasn't a sign of
+a Uhlan.</p>
+
+<p>We rested a bit. One of us suggested having a look round for some Uhlans
+from <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 64]</span><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>the top of the nearest hill. It was a terrific climb up a narrow
+track, but our bicycles brought us up magnificently. From the top we
+could see right away to the forest of Compi&egrave;gne, but a judicious bit of
+scouting produced nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Coming down we heard from a passing car that H.Q. were to be at
+Cr&ecirc;py-en-Valois, a biggish old place about four miles away to the south
+the other side of B&eacute;thancourt. We arrived there just as the sun was
+going to set. It was a confusing place, crammed full of transport, but I
+found my way to our potential H.Q. with the aid of a joyous little
+flapper on my carrier.</p>
+
+<p>Then I remembered I had left my revolver behind on the hill above
+B&eacute;thisy. Just before I started I heard that there were bags of Uhlans
+coming along over the hills and through the woods. But there was nothing
+for it but to go back, and back I went. It was a bestial climb in the
+dusk. On my way back I saw some strange-looking figures in the grounds
+of a chateau. So I opened my throttle and thundered past.</p>
+
+<p>Later I found that the figures belonged to the rest of the
+motor-cyclists. The chateau ought to have been our H.Q., and arriving
+there they had been entertained to a sit-down tea and a bath.</p>
+
+<p>We had a rotten night&mdash;nothing between <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 65]</span><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>me and a cold, hard tiled floor
+except a waterproof sheet, but no messages.</p>
+
+<p>We woke very early (September 1st) to the noise of guns. The Germans
+were attacking vigorously, having brought up several brigades of Jaegers
+by motor-bus. The 15th was on our left, the 13th was holding the hill
+above B&eacute;thancourt, and the 14th was scrapping away on the right. The
+guns were ours, as the Germans didn't appear to have any with them. I
+did a couple of messages out to the 15th. The second time I came back
+with the news that their left flank was being turned.</p>
+
+<p>A little later one of our despatch riders rode in hurriedly. He reported
+that, while he was riding along the road to the 15th, he had been shot
+at by Uhlans whom he had seen distinctly. At the moment it was of the
+utmost importance to get a despatch through to the 15th. The Skipper
+offered to take it, but the General refused his offer.</p>
+
+<p>A second despatch rider was carefully studying his map. It seemed to him
+absolutely inconceivable that Uhlans should be at the place where the
+first despatch rider had seen them. They must either have ridden right
+round our left flank and left rear, or else broken through the line. So
+he offered boldly to take the despatch.</p>
+
+<p>He rode by a slightly roundabout road, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 66]</span><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>and reached the 15th in safety.
+On his way back he saw a troop of North Irish Horse. In the meantime the
+Divisional Headquarters had left Cr&eacute;py in great state, the men with
+rifles in front, and taken refuge on a hill south-east of the town. On
+his return the despatch rider was praised mightily for his work, but to
+this day he believes the Uhlans were North Irish Horse and the bullets
+"overs"<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>&mdash;to this day the first despatch rider contradicts him.</p>
+
+<p>The Division got away from Cr&eacute;py with the greatest success. The 13th
+slaughtered those foolish Huns that tried to charge up the hill in the
+face of rifle, machine-gun, and a considerable shell fire. The Duke of
+Wellington's laid a pretty little ambush and hooked a car containing the
+general and staff of the 1st Cavalry Division. The prisoners were
+remorsefully shot, as it would have been impossible to bring them away
+under the heavy fire.</p>
+
+<p>We jogged on to Nanteuil, all of us very pleased with ourselves,
+particularly the Duke of Wellington's, who were loaded with spoils, and
+a billeting officer who, running slap into some Uhlans, had been fired
+at all the way from 50 yards' range to 600 and hadn't been hit.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 67]</span><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a></p>
+<p>I obtained leave to give a straggler a lift of a couple of miles. He was
+embarrassingly grateful. The last few miles was weary work for the men.
+Remember they had marched or fought, or more often both, every day since
+our quiet night at Landrecies. The road, too, was the very roughest
+<i>pav&eacute;</i>, though I remember well a little forest of bracken and pines we
+went through. Being "a would-be literary bloke," I murmured "Scottish";
+being tired I forgot it from the moment after I saw it until now.</p>
+
+<p>There was no rest at Nanteuil. I took the Artillery Staff Captain round
+the brigades on my carrier, and did not get back until 10. A bit of hot
+stew and a post-card from home cheered me. I managed a couple of hours'
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>We turned out about 3, the morning of September 2nd. It was quite dark
+and bitterly cold. Very sleepily indeed we rode along an exiguous path
+by the side of the cobbles. The sun had risen, but it was still cold
+when we rattled into that diabolical city of lost souls, Dammartin.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody spoke as we entered. Indeed there were only a few haggard, ugly
+old women, each with a bit of a beard and a large goitre. One came up to
+me and chattered at me. Then suddenly she stopped and rushed away, still
+gibbering. We asked for a <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 68]</span><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>restaurant. A stark, silent old man, with a
+goitre, pointed out an <i>estaminet</i>. There we found four motionless men,
+who looked up at us with expressionless eyes. Chilled, we withdrew into
+the street. Silent, melancholy soldiers&mdash;the H.Q. of some army or
+division&mdash;were marching miserably out. We battered at the door of a
+hotel for twenty minutes. We stamped and cursed and swore, but no one
+would open. Only a hideous and filthy crowd stood round, and not one of
+them moved a muscle. Finally, we burst into a bare little inn, and had
+such a desolate breakfast of sour wine, bread, and bully. We finished as
+soon as we could to leave the nightmare place. Even the houses were
+gaunt and ill-favoured.</p>
+
+<p>On our way out we came across a deserted motor-cycle. Some one suggested
+sending it on by train, until some one else remarked that there were no
+trains, and this was fifteen miles from Paris.</p>
+
+<p>We cut across country, rejoined the column, and rode with it to
+Vinantes, passing on the way a lost motor-lorry. The driver was tearing
+his hair in an absolute panic. We told him the Germans were just a few
+miles along the road; but we wished we hadn't when, in hurriedly
+reversing to escape, he sent a couple of us into the ditch.</p>
+
+<p>At Vinantes we "requisitioned" a car, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 69]</span><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>some chickens, and a pair of
+boots. There was a fusty little tavern down the street, full of laughing
+soldiers. In the corner a fat, middle-aged woman sat weeping quietly on
+a sack. The host, sullen and phlegmatic, answered every question with a
+shake of the head and a muttered "N'importe." The money he threw
+contemptuously on the counter. The soldiers thought they were spies. "As
+speaking the langwidge," I asked him what the matter was.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"They say, sir, that this village will be shelled by the
+cursed Germans, and the order has gone out to evacuate."</p></div>
+
+<p>Then, suddenly his face became animated, and he told me volubly how he
+had been born in the village, how he had been married there, how he had
+kept the <i>estaminet</i> for twenty years, how all the leading men of the
+village came of an evening and talked over the things that were
+happening in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>He started shouting, as men will&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"What does it matter what I sell, what I receive? What does
+it matter, for have I not to leave all this?"</p></div>
+
+<p>Then his wife came up and put her hand on his arm&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Now, now; give the gentlemen their beer."</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 70]</span><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a></p>
+
+<p>I bought some cherry brandy and came away.</p>
+
+<p>I was sent on a couple of messages that afternoon: one to trace a
+telephone wire to a deserted station with nothing in it but a sack of
+excellent potatoes, another to an officer whom I could not find. I
+waited under a tree eating somebody else's pears until I was told he had
+gone mad, and was wandering aimlessly about.</p>
+
+<p>It was a famous night for me. I was sent off to Dammartin, and knew
+something would go wrong. It did. A sentry all but shot me. I nearly
+rode into an unguarded trench across the road, and when I started back
+with my receipt my bicycle would not fire. I found that the mechanic at
+Dammartin had filled my tank with water. It took me two hours, two lurid
+hours, to take that water out. It was three in the morning when I got
+going. I was badly frightened the Division had gone on, because I hadn't
+the remotest conception where it was going to. When I got back H.Q. were
+still at Vinantes. I retired thankfully to my bed under the stars,
+listening dreamily to Grimers, who related how a sentry had fired at
+him, and how one bullet had singed the back of his neck.</p>
+
+<p>We left Vinantes not too early after breakfast,&mdash;a comfort, as we had
+all of us <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 71]</span><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>been up pretty well the whole night. Grimers was still upset
+at having been shot at by sentries. I had been going hard, and had had
+only a couple of hours' sleep. We rode on in advance of the company. It
+was very hot and dusty, and when we arrived at Cr&eacute;cy with several hours
+to spare, we first had a most excellent omelette and then a shave, a
+hair-cut, and a wash. Cr&eacute;cy was populous and excited. It made us joyous
+to think we had reached a part of the country where the shops were open,
+people pursuing their own business, where there was no dumbly
+reproaching glance for us in our retreat.</p>
+
+<p>We had been told that our H.Q. that night were going to be at the
+chateau of a little village called La Haute Maison. Three of us arrived
+there and found the caretaker just leaving. We obtained the key, and
+when he had gone did a little bit of looting on our own. First we had a
+great meal <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'off'">of</ins> lunch-tongue, bread, wine, and stewed pears. Then we
+carefully took half a dozen bottles of champagne and hid them, together
+with some other food-stuffs, in the middle of a big bed of nettles. A
+miscellaneous crowd of cows were wandering round the house lowing
+pitifully.</p>
+
+<p>We were just about to make a heroic effort at milking when the 3rd Div.
+billeting <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 72]</span><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>officer arrived and told us that the 5th Div. H.Q. would be
+that night at Bouleurs, farther back. We managed to carry off the
+food-stuffs, but the champagne is probably still in the nettles. And the
+bottles are standing up too.</p>
+
+<p>We found the company encamped in a schoolhouse, our fat signal-sergeant
+doing dominie at the desk. I made himself a comfortable sleeping-place
+with straw, then went out on the road to watch the refugees pass.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know what it was. It may have been the bright and clear evening
+glow, but&mdash;you will laugh&mdash;the refugees seemed to me absurdly beautiful.
+A dolorous, patriarchal procession of old men with white beards leading
+their asthmatic horses that drew huge country carts piled with clothes,
+furniture, food, and pets. Frightened cows with heavy swinging udders
+were being piloted by lithe middle-aged women. There was one girl
+demurely leading goats. In the full crudity of curve and distinctness of
+line she might have sat for Steinlen,&mdash;there was a brownness, too, in
+the atmosphere. Her face was olive and of perfect proportions; her
+eyelashes long and black. She gave me a terrified side-glance, and I
+thought I was looking at the picture of the village flirt in serene
+flight.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 73]</span><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a></p>
+
+<p>I connect that girl with a whisky-and-soda, drunk about midnight out of
+a tin mug under the trees, thanks to the kindness of the Divisional
+Train officers. It did taste fine.</p>
+
+<p>The next day (September 4th) I was attached to the Divisional Cyclists.
+We spent several hours on the top of a hill, looking right across the
+valley for Germans. I was glad of the rest, as very early in the morning
+I had been sent off at full speed to prevent an officer blowing up a
+bridge. Luckily I blundered into one of his men, and scooting across a
+mile of heavy plough, I arrived breathless at the bridge, but just in
+time. The bridge in the moonlight looked like a patient horse waiting to
+be whipped on the raw. The subaltern was very angry. There had been an
+alarm of Uhlans, and his French escort had retired from the bridge to
+safer quarters....</p>
+
+<p>I shared Captain Burnett's lunch, and later went to fetch some men from
+a bridge that we had blown up. It seemed to me at the time that the
+bridge had been blown up very badly. As a matter of fact, German
+infantry crossed it four hours after I had left it.</p>
+
+<p>We had "the wind up" that afternoon. It appears that a patrol of six
+Uhlans had either been cut off or had somehow got <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 74]</span><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>across the river at
+Meaux. Anyway, they rode past an unsuspecting sleepy outpost of ours,
+and spread alarm through the division. Either the division was panicky
+or the report had become exaggerated on the way to H.Q. Batteries were
+put into position on the Meaux road, and there was a general liveliness.</p>
+
+<p>I got back from a hard but unexciting day's work with the Cyclists to
+find that the Germans had got across in very fact, though not at Meaux,
+and that we were going to do a further bunk that night. We cursed the
+gentle Germans heartily and well. About 10.30 the three of us who were
+going on started. We found some convoys on the way, delivered messages,
+and then I, who was leading, got badly lost in the big Villeneuve
+forest&mdash;I forgot the name of it at the moment.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Of course I pretended
+that we were taking the shortest road, and luck, which is always with me
+when I've got to find anything, didn't desert me that night.</p>
+
+<p>At dead of night we echoed into the Chateau at Tournan, roused some
+servants, and made them get us some bread, fruit, and mattresses. The
+bread and fruit we devoured, together with a lunch-tongue, from that
+excellent Chateau at La Haute Maison&mdash;the mattresses we took into a
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 75]</span><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>large airy room and slept on, until we were wakened by the peevish
+tones of the other motor-cyclists who had ridden with the column. One of
+them had fallen asleep on his bicycle and disappeared into a ditch, but
+the other two were so sleepy they did not hear him. We were all weary
+and bad-tempered, while a hot dusty day, and a rapid succession of
+little routine messages, did not greatly cheer us.</p>
+
+<p>At Tournan, appropriately, we turned. We were only a few miles S.-E. of
+Paris. The Germans never got farther than Lagny. There they came into
+touch with our outposts, so the tactful French are going to raise a
+monument to Jeanne d'Arc&mdash;a reminder, I suppose, that even we and they
+committed atrocities sometime.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 76]</span><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>OVER THE MARNE TO THE AISNE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The morning of September 5th was very hot, but the brigades could easily
+be found, and the roads to them were good. There was cheerfulness in the
+air. A rumour went round&mdash;it was quite incredible, and we scoffed&mdash;that
+instead of further retreating either beyond or into the fortifications
+of Paris, there was a possibility of an advance. The Germans, we were
+told, had at last been outflanked. Joffre's vaunted plan that had
+inspired us through the dolorous startled days of retirement was, it
+appeared, a fact, and not one of those bright fancies that the Staff
+invents for our tactical delectation.</p>
+
+<p>Spuggy returned. He had left us at Bouleurs to find a bicycle in Paris.
+Coming back he had no idea that we had moved. So he rode too far north.
+He escaped luckily. He was riding along about three hundred yards behind
+two motor-cyclists.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 77]</span><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a> Suddenly he saw them stop abruptly and put up their
+hands. He fled. A little farther on he came to a village and asked for
+coffee. He heard that Uhlans had been there a few hours before, and was
+taken to see a woman who had been shot through the breast. Then he went
+south through Villeneuve, and following a fortunate instinct, ran into
+our outposts the other side of Tournan.</p>
+
+<p>We all slept grandly on mattresses. It was the first time we had been
+two nights in the same place since Dour.</p>
+
+<p>We awoke early to a gorgeous day. We were actually going to advance. The
+news put us in marvellous good temper. For the first time in my
+recollection we offered each other our bacon, and one at the end of
+breakfast said he had had enough. The Staff was almost giggling, and a
+battalion (the Cheshires, I think) that we saw pass, was absolutely
+shouting with joy. You would have thought we had just gained a famous
+victory.</p>
+
+<p>Half of us went forward with the column. The rest remained for a
+slaughterous hour. First we went to the hen-house, and in ten minutes
+had placed ten dripping victims in the French gendarme captain's car.
+Then George and I went in pursuit of a turkey for the Skipper. It was an
+elusive bird with <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 78]</span><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>a perfectly Poultonian swerve, but with a bagful of
+curses, a bleeding hand, and a large stick, I did it to death.</p>
+
+<p>We set out merrily and picked up Spuggy, Cecil, and George in the big
+forest that stretches practically from the Marne to Tournan. They
+thought they had heard a Uhlan, but nothing came of it (he turned out to
+be a deer), so we went on to Villeneuve. There I bought some biscuits
+and George scrounged some butter. A job to the 3rd Division on our right
+and another in pursuit of an errant officer, and then a sweaty and
+exiguous lunch&mdash;it was a sweltering noon&mdash;seated on a blistering
+pavement. Soon after lunch three of us were sent on to Mortcerf, a
+village on a hill to the north of the forest. We were the first English
+there&mdash;the Germans had left it in the morning&mdash;and the whole population,
+including one strikingly pretty flapper, turned out to welcome us in
+their best clean clothes,&mdash;it may have been Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>We accepted any quantity of gorgeous, luscious fruit, retiring modestly
+to a shady log to eat it, and smoke a delectable pipe. In a quarter of
+an hour Major Hildebrand of the 2nd Corps turned up in his car, and
+later the company.</p>
+
+<p>Pollers had had a little adventure. He was with some of our men when he
+saw a <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 79]</span><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>grey figure coming down one of the glades to the road. We knew
+there were many stray Uhlans in the forest who had been left behind by
+our advance. The grey figure was stalked, unconscious of his danger.
+Pollers had a shot with his revolver, luckily without effect, for the
+figure turned out to be our blasphemous farrier, who had gone into the
+forest, clad only in regulation grey shirt and trousers, to find some
+water.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the afternoon I was sent off to find the North Irish Horse. I
+discovered them four miles away in the first flush of victory. They had
+had a bit of a scrap with Uhlans, and were proudly displaying to an
+admiring brigade that was marching past a small but select collection of
+horses, lances, and saddles.</p>
+
+<p>This afternoon George smashed up his bicycle, the steering head giving
+at a corner.</p>
+
+<p>We bivouacked on the drive, but the hardness of our bed didn't matter,
+as we were out all night&mdash;all of us, including the two, Grimers and
+Cecil. It was nervous riding in the forest. All the roads looked exactly
+alike, and down every glade we expected a shot from derelict Uhlans.
+That night I thought out plots for at least four stories. It would have
+been three, but I lost my way, and was only put right by striking a
+wandering convoy. I was in search of the Division<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 80]</span><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a> Train. I looked for
+it at Tournan and at Villeneuve and right through the forest, but
+couldn't find it. I was out from ten to two, and then again from two to
+five, with messages for miscellaneous ammunition columns. I collared an
+hour's sleep and, by mistake, a chauffeur's overcoat, which led to
+recriminations in the morning. But the chauffeur had an unfair
+advantage. I was too tired to reply.</p>
+
+<p>Grimers, who cannot see well at night, was terrified when he had to take
+a despatch through the forest. He rode with a loaded revolver in one
+hand, and was only saved from shooting a wretched transport officer by a
+wild cry, "For God's sake, look what you're doing."</p>
+
+<p>The eldest Cecil reported a distinct smell of dead horses at the obelisk
+in the forest. At least he rather thought they were dead donkeys. The
+smell was a little different&mdash;more acrid and unpleasant. We told him
+that there were eight dead Germans piled at the side of the road, and we
+reminded him that it had been a sweltering day.</p>
+
+<p>We were terribly tired in the morning. Spuggy, George, and Orr went off
+to Paris for new bicycles, and we were left short-handed again. Another
+tropical day.</p>
+
+<p>The Skipper rode the spare bike with great dash, the elder Cecil and I
+attendant.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 81]</span><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a> We sprinted along a good straight road to the cobbled,
+crowded little town of Faremoutiers. Then we decided to advance to
+Mouroux, our proposed headquarters. It was a haggard village, just off
+the road. We arrived there about twelve: the Germans had departed at
+six, leaving behind them a souvenir in the dead body of a fellow from
+the East Lancs. crumpled in a ditch. He had been shot while eating. It
+was my first corpse. I am afraid I was not overwhelmed with thoughts of
+the fleetingness of life or the horror of death. If I remember my
+feelings aright, they consisted of a pinch of sympathy mixed with a
+trifle of disgust, and a very considerable hunger, which some apples by
+the roadside did something to allay.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget Mouroux. It was just a little square of old houses.
+Before the Mairie was placed a collection of bottles from which the
+Sales Boches had very properly drunk. French proclamations were
+scribbled over with coarse, heavy jests. The women were almost
+hysterical with relieved anxiety. The men were still sullen, and, though
+they looked well fed, begged for bread. A German knapsack that I had
+picked up and left in charge of some villagers was torn to shreds in
+fierce hatred when my back was turned.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 82]</span><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a></p>
+
+<p>It was very lonely there in the sun. We had outstripped the
+advance-guard by mistake and were relieved when it came up.</p>
+
+<p>We made prisoner of a German who had overslept himself because he had
+had a bath.</p>
+
+<p>I rushed back with Grimers on my carrier to fetch another bicycle. On my
+return my engine suddenly produced an unearthly metallic noise. It was
+only an aeroplane coming down just over my head.</p>
+
+<p>In the late afternoon we marched into Coulommiers. The people crowded
+into the streets and cheered us. The girls, with tears in their eyes,
+handed us flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Three of us went to the Mairie. The Maire, a courtly little fellow in
+top-hat and frock-coat, welcomed us in charming terms. Two fat old women
+rushed up to us and besought us to allow them to do something for us. We
+set one to make us tea, and the other to bring us hot water and soap.</p>
+
+<p>A small girl of about eight brought me her kitten and wanted to give it
+me. I explained to her that it would not be very comfortable tied with
+pink ribbons to my carrier. She gravely assented, sat on my knee, told
+me I was very dirty, and commanded me to kill heaps and heaps of
+Germans. She didn't like them; they had beards!</p>
+
+<p>You know those fierce middle-aged French<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 83]</span><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>women of the <i>bourgeois</i> class,
+hard as Scotsmen, close as Jews, and with feelings about as fine as
+those of a motor-bus. She was one of them, and she was the foremost of a
+largish crowd that collected round me. With her was a pretty girl of
+about twenty-two.</p>
+
+<p>The mother began with a rhetorical outburst against all Germans,
+anathematising in particular those who had spent the last fortnight in
+Coulommiers, in which town her uncle had set up his business, which,
+though it had proved successful, as they all knew, &amp;c., &amp;c. The crowd
+murmured that they did all know. Then the old harridan chanted the
+wrongs which the Germans had wrought until, when she had worked the
+crowd and herself up to a heat of furious excitement, she lowered her
+voice, suddenly lowered her tone. In a grating whisper she narrated, in
+more detail than I cared to hear, the full story of how her daughter&mdash;to
+whom she pointed&mdash;had been shamefully treated by the Germans. The crowd
+growled. The daughter was, I think, more pleased at being the object of
+my sympathy and the centre of the crowd's interest than agonised at the
+remembrance of her misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the company coming up saved me from the recital of further
+outrages. The hag told them of a house where the Germans had left a
+rifle or two and some of our <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 84]</span><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>messages which they had intercepted. The
+girl hesitated a moment, and then followed. I started hastily to go on,
+but the girl, hearing the noise of my engine, ran back to bid me an
+unembarrassed farewell.</p>
+
+<p>I rode through Coulommiers, a jolly rambling old town, to our billet in
+a suburban villa on the Rebais road. The Division was marching past in
+the very best of spirits. We, who were very tired, endeavoured to make
+ourselves comfortable&mdash;we were then blanketless&mdash;on the abhorrent
+surface of a narrow garden path.</p>
+
+<p>That night a 2nd Corps despatch rider called in half an hour before his
+death. We have heard many explanations of how he died. He crashed into a
+German barricade, and we discovered him the next morning with his eyes
+closed, neatly covered with a sheet, in a quaint little house at the
+entrance to the village of Dou&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn (Sept. 8th) the others went on with the column. I was sent back
+with a despatch for Faremoutiers, and then was detailed to remain for an
+hour with Cecil. Ten minutes after my return the Fat Boy rode in,
+greatly excited. He had gone out along the Aulnoy road with a message,
+and round a corner had run into a patrol of Uhlans. He kept his head,
+turned quickly, and rode off in a shower of bullets. He was
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 85]</span><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>tremendously indignant, and besought some cavalry who were passing to
+go in pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>We heard the rumble of guns and started in a hurry after the column.
+Sergeant Merchant's bicycle&mdash;our spare, a Rudge&mdash;burnt out its clutch,
+and we left it in exchange for some pears at a cottage with a delicious
+garden in Champbreton. Dou&eacute; was a couple of miles farther on.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Sawyer, D.D.M.S., stopped me anxiously, and asked me to go and
+see if I could recognise the despatch rider's corpse. I meditated over
+it for a few minutes, then ran on to the signal-office by the roadside.
+There I exchanged my old bike for a new one which had been discovered in
+a cottage. Nothing was wrong with my ancient grid except a buckled back
+rim, due to collision with a brick when riding without a lamp. One of
+the company rode it quietly to Serches, then it went on the side-car,
+and was eventually discarded at Beuvry.</p>
+
+<p>I found the Division very much in action. The object of the Germans was,
+by an obstinate rearguard action, to hold first the line of the Petit
+Morin and second the line La Fert&eacute; to the hills north of M&eacute;ry, so that
+their main body might get back across the Marne and continue northward
+their retreat, necessitated by our pressure on their flank. This retreat
+again was to be as slow as <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 86]</span><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>possible, to prevent an outflanking of the
+whole.</p>
+
+<p>Our object was obviously to prevent them achieving theirs.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the map and grasp these three things:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>1. The two rivers&mdash;the Petit Morin debouching so as to cover
+the German left centre.</p>
+
+<p>2. From La Fert&eacute; westwards the rivers run in deep ravines,
+hemmed in by precipitous thickly-wooded hills.</p>
+
+<p>3. Only two bridges across the Marne remained&mdash;one large one
+at La Fert&eacute; and one small one at Saacy.</p></div>
+
+<p>When I arrived at Dou&eacute; the Germans were holding the Forest of Jouarre in
+force. They were in moderate force on the south bank of the Petit Morin,
+and had some guns, but not many, on the north bank.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a tale of how glory may be forced upon the unwilling.</p>
+
+<p>There were troops on the road running south from Jouarre. They might be
+Germans retreating. They might be the 3rd Corps advancing. The Staff
+wanted to know at once, and, although a despatch rider had already been
+sent west to ride up the road from the south, it was thought that
+another despatch rider skirting the east side of the Bois de Jouarre
+might find out <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 87]</span><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 88]</span><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>more quickly. So the captain called for volunteers.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/map3.jpg"><img src="./images/map3-tb.jpg" alt="THE MARNE" title="THE MARNE" /></a></div>
+
+<p>Now one despatch rider had no stomach for the job. He sat behind a tree
+and tried to look as if he had not heard the captain's appeal. The
+sergeant in charge had faith in him and, looking round, said in a loud
+voice, "Here is Jones!" (it is obviously impolitic for me to give even
+his nickname, if I wish to tell the truth). The despatch rider jumped
+up, pretended he knew nothing of what was going forward, and asked what
+was required. He was told, and with sinking heart enthusiastically
+volunteered for the job.</p>
+
+<p>He rode off, taking the road by La Chevrie Farm. Beyond the farm the
+Germans sniped him unmercifully, but (so he told me) he got well down on
+the tank and rode "all out" until he came to the firing line just
+south-west of the farm to the north of Chevrie. Major Buckle came out of
+his ditch to see what was wanted. The rifle fire seemed to increase. The
+air was buzzing, and just in front of his bicycle multitudinous little
+spurts of dust flecked the road.</p>
+
+<p>It was distinctly unpleasant, and, as Major Buckle persisted in standing
+in the middle of the road instead of taking the despatch rider with him
+into his ditch, the despatch <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 89]</span><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>rider had to stand there too, horribly
+frightened. The Major said it was impossible to go farther. There was
+only a troop of cavalry, taking careful cover, at the farm in front,
+and&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My God, man, you're under machine-gun fire."</p></div>
+
+<p>So that's what it is, murmured the despatch rider to himself, not
+greatly cheered. He saw he could not get to any vantage point by that
+road, and it seemed best to get back at once. He absolutely streaked
+along back to D.H.Q., stopping on the way very much against his will to
+deliver a message from Major Buckle to the Duke of Wellington's who were
+in support.</p>
+
+<p>He gave in his report, such as it was, to Colonel Romer, and was
+praised. Moral: Be called away by some pressing engagement <i>before</i> the
+captain calls for volunteers. May <i>Gott strafe</i> thoroughly all
+interfering sergeants!</p>
+
+<p>The Headquarters Staff advanced in an hour or so to some houses. The 3rd
+Corps, consisting of the 4th Division and the unlucky 19th Brigade, had
+pushed on with tremendous dash towards Jouarre, and we learnt from an
+aeroplane which dropped a message on the hill at Dou&eacute; that the general
+situation was favourable. The Germans were crowding across the bridge at
+La Fert&eacute; <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 90]</span><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>under heavy shell fire, but unluckily we could not hit the
+blighted bridge.</p>
+
+<p>It was now midday and very hot. There was little water. We had been
+advancing over open fields without a vestige of shade.</p>
+
+<p>Under cover of their guns the Germans fled across the Petit Morin in
+such confusion that they did not even hold the very defensible heights
+to the north of the river. We followed on their heels through St Ouen
+and up the hill behind the village. Three of us went on ahead and sat
+for two hours in a trench with borrowed rifles waiting for the Germans
+to come out of a wood. But it began to rain very hard, and the Germans
+came on the other side and were taken by the Cyclists.</p>
+
+<p>It was just getting dark when we rendezvoused at the cross-roads of
+Charnesseuil. The village was battered by our guns, but the villagers
+did not mind a scrap and welcomed us with screams of joy. The local inn
+was <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'reopend'">reopened</ins> with cheers, and in spite of the fact that there were two
+dead horses, very evil-smelling, just outside, we had drinks all round.</p>
+
+<p>We were interrupted by laughter and cheers. We rushed out to see the
+quaintest procession coming from the west into Charnesseuil. Seventy odd
+immense Prussian Guards were humbly pushing in the bicycles <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 91]</span><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>of forty of
+our Divisional Cyclists, who were dancing round them in delight. They
+had captured a hundred and fifty of them, but our guns had shelled them,
+luckily without doing much damage to the Cyclists, so loading up the
+prisoners with all their kit and equipment, and making them lead their
+captors' bicycles, the Cyclists brought them in triumph for the
+inspection of the Staff. It was a great moment.</p>
+
+<p>I was very tired, and, careless of who passed, stretched myself at the
+side of the road for a sleep. I was wakened an hour later, and we all
+went along together to the chateau. There we slept in the hall before
+the contented faces of some fine French pictures&mdash;or the majority of
+them,&mdash;the rest were bestially slashed.</p>
+
+<p>At the break of dawn (Sept. 9th) I was sent off to the 14th Brigade,
+which composed the advance-guard. Scouts had reported that Saacy had
+been evacuated by the enemy. So we pushed on cautiously and took
+possession of the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>I came up with the Brigade Staff on a common at the top of the
+succeeding hill, having been delayed by a puncture. Nixon, the S.O.,
+told me that a battery of ours in position on the common to the south of
+the farm would open fire in a few minutes. The German guns would reply,
+but would <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 92]</span><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>be quickly silenced. In the meantime I was to take shelter in
+the farm.</p>
+
+<p>I had barely put my bicycle under cover in the courtyard when the
+Germans opened fire, not at our guns but at a couple of companies of the
+Manchesters who were endeavouring to take cover just north of the farm.</p>
+
+<p>In the farm I found King and his platoon of Cyclists. Shrapnel bullets
+simply rattled against the old house, and an occasional common shell
+dropped near by way of variety. The Cyclists were restive, and I was
+too, so to relieve the situation I proposed breakfast. King and I had
+half a loaf of Saacy bread and half a pot of jam I always carried about
+with me. The rest went to the men. Our breakfast was nearly spoilt by
+the Manchesters, who, after they had lost a few men, rushed through the
+farm into the wood, where, naturally enough, they lost a few more. They
+besought the Cyclists to cover their retreat, but as it was from
+shrapnel we mildly suggested it was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>The courtyard was by this time covered with tiles and pitted with
+bullets. We, close up against the wall, had been quite moderately safe.
+The shelling slackened off, so we thought we had better do a <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 93]</span><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>bunk. With
+pride of race the motor-cyclist left last.</p>
+
+<p>The 14th Brigade had disappeared. I went back down the track and found
+the General and his staff, fuming, half-way up the hill. The German guns
+could not be found, and the German guns were holding up the whole
+Division.</p>
+
+<p>I slept by the roadside for an hour. I was woken up to take a message to
+2nd Corps at Saacy. On my return I was lucky enough to see a very
+spectacular performance.</p>
+
+<p>From the point which I call A to the point B is, or ought to be, 5000
+yards. At A there is a gap in the wood, and you get a gorgeous view over
+the valley. The road from La Fert&eacute; to the point B runs on high ground,
+and at B there is a corresponding gap, the road being open completely
+for roughly 200 yards. A convoy of German lorries was passing with an
+escort of infantry, and the General thought we might as well have a shot
+at them. Two 18-pdrs. were man-handled to the side of the hill and
+opened fire, while six of us with glasses and our lunch sat behind and
+watched.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dainty sight&mdash;the lorries scooting across, while the escort
+took cover. The guns picked off a few, completely demolish<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 94]</span><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>ing two
+lorries, then with a few shells into some cavalry that appeared on the
+horizon, they ceased fire.</p>
+
+<p>The affair seemed dangerous to the uninitiated despatch rider. Behind
+the two guns was a brigade of artillery in column of route on an
+exceedingly steep and narrow road. Guns firing in the open can be seen.
+If the Germans were to spot us, we shuddered to think what would become
+of the column behind us on the road.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon I had nothing more to do, so, returning to the common, I
+dozed there for a couple of hours, knowing that I should have little
+sleep that night. At dusk we bivouacked in the garden of the chateau at
+M&eacute;ry. We arrived at the chateau before the Staff and picked up some
+wine.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I heard that a certain captain in the gunners went
+reconnoitring and found the battery&mdash;it was only one&mdash;that had held up
+our advance. He returned to the General, put up his eyeglass and
+drawled, "I say, General, I've found that battery. I shall now deal with
+it." He did. In five minutes it was silenced, and the 14th attacked up
+the Valley of Death, as the men called it. They were repulsed with very
+heavy losses; their reinforcements, which had arrived the day before,
+were practically annihilated.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 95]</span><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a></p>
+
+<p>It was a bad day.</p>
+
+<p>That night it was showery, and I combined vain attempts to get to sleep
+between the showers with a despatch to 2nd Corps at Saacy and another to
+the Division Ammunition Column the other side of Charnesseuil.</p>
+
+<p>Towards morning the rain became heavier, so I took up my bed&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, my
+greatcoat and ground-sheet&mdash;and, finding four free square feet in the
+S.O., had an hour's troubled sleep before I was woken up half an hour
+before dawn to get ready to take an urgent message as soon as it was
+light.</p>
+
+<p>On September 9th, just before dawn&mdash;it was raining and very cold&mdash;I was
+sent with a message to Colonel Cameron at the top of the hill, telling
+him he might advance. The Germans, it appeared, had retired during the
+night. Returning to the chateau at M&eacute;ry, I found the company had gone
+on, so I followed them along the Valley of Death to Montreuil.</p>
+
+<p>It was the dismallest morning, dark as if the sun would never rise,
+chequered with little bursts of heavy rain. The road was black with mud.
+The hedges dripped audibly into watery ditches. There was no grass, only
+a plentiful coarse vegetation. The valley itself seemed enclosed by
+unpleasant hills from joy or light. Soldiers lined the road&mdash;some were
+dead, contorted, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 96]</span><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>or just stretched out peacefully; some were wounded,
+and they moaned as I passed along. There was one officer who slowly
+moved his head from side to side. That was all he could do. But I could
+not stop; the ambulances were coming up. So I splashed rapidly through
+the mud to the cross-roads north of Montreuil.</p>
+
+<p>To the right was a barn in which the Germans had slept. It was littered
+with their equipment. And in front of it was a derelict motor-car
+dripping in the rain.</p>
+
+<p>At Montreuil we had a scrap of bully with a bit of biscuit for
+breakfast, then we ploughed slowly and dangerously alongside the column
+to Dhuizy, where a house that our artillery had fired was still burning.
+The chalked billeting marks of the Germans were still on the doors of
+the cottages. I had a despatch to take back along the column to the
+Heavies. Grease a couple of inches thick carpeted the road. We all
+agreed that we should be useless in winter.</p>
+
+<p>At Dhuizy the sun came out.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of miles farther on I had a talk with two German
+prisoners&mdash;R.A.M.C. They were sick of the war. Summed it up thus:</p>
+
+<p>Wir weissen nichts: wir essen nichts: immer laufen, laufen, laufen.</p>
+
+<p>In bright sunshine we pushed on towards<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 97]</span><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a> Gandeln. On the way we had a
+bit of lunch, and I left a pipe behind. As there was nothing doing I
+pushed on past the column, waiting for a moment to watch some infantry
+draw a large wood, and arrived with the cavalry at Gandeln, a rakish old
+town at the bottom of an absurdly steep hill. Huggie passed me with a
+message. Returning he told me that the road ahead was pitiably
+disgusting.</p>
+
+<p>You must remember that we were hotly pursuing a disorganised foe. In
+front the cavalry and horse artillery were harassing them for all they
+were worth, and whenever there was an opening our bigger guns would
+gallop up for a trifle of blue murder.</p>
+
+<p>From Gandeln the road rises sharply through woods and then runs on high
+ground without a vestige of cover for two and a half miles into Ch&eacute;zy.
+On this high, open ground our guns caught a German convoy, and we saw
+the result.</p>
+
+<p>First there were a few dead and wounded Germans, all muddied. The men
+would look curiously at each, and sometimes would laugh. Then at the top
+of the hill we came upon some smashed and abandoned waggons. These were
+hastily looted. Men piled themselves with helmets, greatcoats, food,
+saddlery, until we looked a crowd of dishevelled bandits. The German
+wounded <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 98]</span><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>watched&mdash;they lay scattered in a cornfield, like poppies.
+Sometimes Tommy is not a pleasant animal, and I hated him that
+afternoon. One dead German had his pockets full of chocolate. They
+scrambled over him, pulling him about, until it was all divided.</p>
+
+<p>Just off the road was a small sandpit. Three or four waggons&mdash;the
+horses, frightened by our shells, had run over the steep place into the
+sand. Their heads and necks had been forced back into their carcasses,
+and on top of this mash were the splintered waggons. I sat for a long
+time by the well in Ch&eacute;zy and watched the troops go by, caparisoned with
+spoils. I hated war.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the sun was setting we toiled out of Ch&eacute;zy on to an upland of
+cornfields, speckled with grey patches of dead men and reddish-brown
+patches of dead horses. One great horse stood out on a little cliff,
+black against the yellow of the descending sun. It furiously stank. Each
+time I passed it I held my nose, and I was then pretty well used to
+smells. The last I saw of it&mdash;it lay grotesquely on its back with four
+stiff legs sticking straight up like the legs of an overturned table&mdash;it
+was being buried by a squad of little black men billeted near. They were
+cursing richly. The horse's revenge in death, perhaps, for its
+ill-treatment in life.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 99]</span><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a></p>
+
+<p>It was decided to stay the night at Ch&eacute;zy. The village was crowded,
+dark, and confusing. Three of us found the signal office, and made
+ourselves very comfortable for the night with some fresh straw that we
+piled all over us. The roads were for the first time too greasy for
+night-riding. The rest slept in a barn near, and did not discover the
+signal office until dawn.</p>
+
+<p>We awoke, stiff but rested, to a fine warm morning. It was a quiet day.
+We rode with the column along drying roads until noon through peaceful
+rolling country&mdash;then, as there was nothing doing, Grimers and I rode to
+the head of the column, and inquiring with care whether our cavalry was
+comfortably ahead, came to the village of Noroy-sur-Ourcq. We
+"scrounged" for food and found an inn. At first our host, a fat
+well-to-do old fellow, said the Germans had taken everything, but, when
+he saw we really were hungry, he produced sardines, bread, butter,
+sweets, and good red wine. So we made an excellent meal&mdash;and were not
+allowed to pay a penny.</p>
+
+<p>He told that the Germans, who appeared to be in great distress, had
+taken everything in the village, though they had not maltreated any one.
+Their horses were dropping with fatigue&mdash;that we knew&mdash;and their
+officers kept telling their men to hurry up <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 100]</span><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>and get quickly on the
+march. At this point they were just nine hours in front of us.</p>
+
+<p>Greatly cheered we picked up the Division again at Chouy, and sat
+deliciously on a grass bank to wait for the others. Just off the road on
+the opposite side was a dead German. Quite a number of men broke their
+ranks to look curiously at him&mdash;anything to break the tedious, deadening
+monotony of marching twenty-five miles day after day: as a major of the
+Dorsets said to us as we sat there, "It is all right for us, but it's
+hell for them!"</p>
+
+<p>The Company came up, and we found that in Chouy the Germans had
+overlooked a telephone&mdash;great news for the cable detachment. After a
+glance at the church, a gorgeous bit of Gothic that we had shelled, we
+pushed on in the rain to Billy-sur-Ourcq. I was just looking after a
+convenient loft when I was sent back to Chouy to find the Captain's
+watch. A storm was raging down the valley. The road at any time was
+covered with tired foot sloggers. I had to curse them, for they wouldn't
+get out of the way. Soon I warmed and cursed them crudely and glibly in
+four languages. On my return I found some looted boiled eggs and
+captured German Goulasch hot for me. I fed and turned in.</p>
+
+<p>This day my kit was left behind with other <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 101]</span><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>unnecessary "tackle," to
+lighten the horses' load. I wish I had known it.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining eggs for breakfast&mdash;delicious.</p>
+
+<p>Huggie and I were sent off just before dawn on a message that took us to
+St R&eacute;my, a fine church, and Hartennes, where we were given hot tea by
+that great man, Sergeant Croucher of the Divisional Cyclists. I rode
+back to Rozet St Albin, a pleasant name, along a road punctuated with
+dead and very evil-smelling horses. Except for the smell it was a good
+run of about ten miles. I picked up the Division again on the sandy road
+above Chacrise.</p>
+
+<p>Sick of column riding I turned off the main road up a steep hill into
+Ambrief, a desolate black-and-white village totally deserted. It came on
+to pour, but there was a shrine handy. There I stopped until I was
+pulled out by an ancient captain of cuirassiers, who had never seen an
+Englishman before and wanted to hear all about us.</p>
+
+<p>On into Acy, where I decided to head off the Division at Ciry, instead
+of crossing the Aisne and riding straight to Vailly, our proposed H.Q.
+for that night. The decision saved my life, or at least my liberty. I
+rode to Sermoise, a bright little village where the people were actually
+making bread. At the station there was a solitary cavalry man. In<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 102]</span><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a> Ciry
+itself there was no one. Half-way up the Ciry hill, a sort of dry
+watercourse, I ran into some cavalry and learnt that the Germans were
+holding the Aisne in unexpected strength. I had all but ridden round and
+in front of our own cavalry outposts.</p>
+
+<p>Two miles farther back I found Huggie and one of our brigades. We had a
+bit of bully and biscuit under cover of a haystack, then we borrowed
+some glasses and watched bodies of Germans on the hills the other side
+of the Aisne. It was raining very fast. There was no decent cover, so we
+sat on the leeward side of a mound of sand.</p>
+
+<p>When we awoke the sun was setting gorgeously. Away to the west in the
+direction of Soissons there was a tremendous cannonade. On the hills
+opposite little points of flame showed that the Germans were replying.
+On our right some infantry were slowly advancing in extended order
+through a dripping turnip-field.</p>
+
+<p>The Battle of the Aisne had begun.</p>
+
+<p>We were wondering what to do when we were commandeered to take a message
+down that precipitous hill of Ciry to some cavalry. It was now quite
+dark and still raining. We had no carbide, and my carburetter had
+jibbed, so we decided to stop at Ciry for the night. At the inn we found
+many drinks&mdash;particularly some wonderful cherry brandy&mdash;<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 103]</span><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>and a friendly
+motor-cyclist who told us of a billet that an officer was probably going
+to leave. We went there. Our host was an old soldier, so, after his wife
+had hung up what clothes we dared take off to dry by a red-hot stove, he
+gave us some supper of stewed game and red wine, then made us cunning
+beds with straw, pillows, and blankets. Too tired to thank him we
+dropped asleep.</p>
+
+<p>That, though we did not know it then, was the last night of our little
+Odyssey. We had been advancing or retiring without a break since my
+tragic farewell to Nadine. We had been riding all day and often all
+night. But those were heroic days, and now as I write this in our
+comfortable slack winter quarters, I must confess&mdash;I would give anything
+to have them all over again. Now we motor-cyclists are middle-aged
+warriors. Adventures are work. Experiences are a routine. Then, let's be
+sentimental, we were young.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 104]</span><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/map4.jpg"><img src="./images/map4-tb.jpg" alt="THE AISNE (SOISSONS to VAILLY)" title="THE AISNE (SOISSONS to VAILLY)" /></a></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 105]</span><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I'm going to start by giving you an account of what we thought of the
+military situation during the great marches and the battle of the
+Aisne&mdash;for my own use. What happened we shall be able to look up
+afterwards in some lumbersome old history, should we forget, but, unless
+I get down quickly what we thought, it will disappear in
+after-knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>You will remember how the night we arrived on the Aisne Huggie and I
+stretched ourselves on a sand-heap at the side of the road&mdash;just above
+Ciry&mdash;and watched dim columns of Germans crawling like grey worms up the
+slopes the other side of the valley. We were certain that the old
+Division was still in hot cry on the heels of a rapidly retreating foe.
+News came&mdash;I don't know how: you never do&mdash;that our transport and
+ammunition were being delayed <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 106]</span><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>by the fearsome and lamentable state of
+the roads. But the cavalry was pushing on ahead, and tired infantry were
+stumbling in extended order through the soaked fields on either side of
+us. There was hard gunnery well into the red dusk. Right down the valley
+came the thunder of it, and we began to realise that divisions, perhaps
+even corps, had come up on either flank.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient captain of cuirassiers, who had hauled me out of my shrine
+into the rain that afternoon, made me understand there was a great and
+unknown number of French on our left. From the Order before the Marne I
+had learnt that a French Army had turned the German right, but the first
+news I had had of French on our own right was when one staff-officer
+said in front of me that the French away to the east had been held up.
+That was at Dou&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>Our retreat had been solitary. The French, everybody thought, had left
+us in the lurch at Mons and again at Le Cateau, when the cavalry we knew
+to be there refused to help us. For all we knew the French Army had been
+swept off the face of the earth. We were just retiring, and retiring
+before three or four times our own numbers. We were not even supported
+by the 1st Corps on our right. It was smashed, and had all it could <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 107]</span><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>do
+to get itself away. We might have been the Ten Thousand.</p>
+
+<p>But the isolation of our desperate retreat dismayed nobody, for we all
+had an unconquerable belief in the future. There must be some French
+somewhere, and in spite&mdash;as we thought then&mdash;of our better judgments, we
+stuck to the story that was ever being circulated: "We are luring the
+Germans into a trap." It was impressed upon us, too, by "the Div." that
+both at Mons and Le Cateau we were strategically victorious. We had
+given the Germans so hard a knock that they could not pursue us at once;
+we had covered the retirement of the 1st Corps; we had got away
+successfully ourselves. We were sullen and tired victors, never
+defeated. If we retreated, it was for a purpose. If we advanced, the
+Germans were being crushed.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans thought we were beaten, because they didn't realise we knew
+we were victorious the whole time.</p>
+
+<p>I do not say that we were always monotonously cheerful. The night after
+Le Cateau we all thought the game was up,&mdash;until the morning, when
+cheerfulness came with the sun. Then we sighed with relief and
+remembered a little bitterly that we were "luring the Germans on."</p>
+
+<p>Many a time I have come across isolated <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 108]</span><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>units in hot corners who did
+not see a way out. Yet if a battery or a battalion were hard hit, the
+realisation of local defeat was always accompanied by a fervent faith
+that "the old Fifth" was doing well. Le Cateau is a victory in the
+soldier's calendar.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Serves them right">
+<tr><td align='left'>L&egrave; Cate&agrave;u and L&agrave; Bass&egrave;e,<br />It jolly well serves them right.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>We had been ten days or more on the Aisne before we grasped that the
+force opposite us was not merely a dogged, well-entrenched rearguard,
+but a section of the German line.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after we arrived a French cavalry officer had ridden into D.H.Q.,
+and after his departure it was freely rumoured that he had ridden right
+round the German position. News began to trickle in from either flank.
+Our own attacks ceased, and we took up a defensive position. It was the
+beginning of trench-warfare, though owing to the nature of the country
+there were few trenches. Then we heard vaguely that the famous series of
+enveloping movements had begun, but by this time the Division was tired
+to death, and the men were craving for a rest.</p>
+
+<p>Strategy in the ranks&mdash;it was elementary stuff pieced vaguely together.
+But perhaps it will interest you at home to know what we thought out
+here on this great little <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 109]</span><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>stage. What we did you have heard. Still,
+here is the play as we acted in it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Along the Aisne the line of our Division stretched from Venizel to the
+bridge of Cond&eacute;. You must not think of the river as running through a
+gorge or as meandering along the foot of slopes rising directly from the
+river bank. On the southern side lie the Heights of Champagne,
+practically a tableland. From the river this tableland looks like a
+series of ridges approaching the valley at an angle. Between the
+foothills and the river runs the Soissons-Rheims road, good <i>pav&eacute;</i>, and
+for the most part covered by trees. To the north there is a distance of
+two miles or so from the river to the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I shall make this clearer if I take the three main points about
+the position.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>First.</i> If you are going to put troops on the farther side of the river
+you must have the means of crossing it, and you must keep those means
+intact. The bridges running from left to right of our line were at
+Venizel, Missy, Sermoise, and Cond&eacute;. The first three were blown up.
+Venizel bridge was repaired sufficiently to allow of light traffic to
+cross, and fifty yards farther <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 110]</span><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>down a pontoon-bridge was built fit for
+heavy traffic. Missy was too hot: we managed an occasional ferry. I do
+not think we ever had a bridge at Sermoise. Once when in search of the
+C.R.E. I watched a company of the K.O.S.B. being ferried across under
+heavy rifle fire. The raft was made of ground-sheets stuffed, I think,
+with straw. Cond&eacute; bridge the Germans always held, or rather neither of
+us held it, but the Germans were very close to it and allowed nobody to
+cross. Just on our side of the bridge was a car containing two dead
+officers. No one could reach them. There they sat until we left, ghastly
+sentinels, and for all I know they sit there still.</p>
+
+<p>Now all communication with troops on the north bank of the river had to
+pass over these bridges, of which Venizel alone was comparatively safe.
+If ever these bridges should be destroyed, the troops on the north bank
+would be irrevocably cut off from supplies of every sort and from
+orders. I often used to wonder what would have happened if the Germans
+had registered accurately upon the bridges, or if the river had risen
+and swept the bridges away.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second.</i> There was an open belt between <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 111]</span><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>the river and the villages
+which we occupied&mdash;Bucy-le-Long, St Marguerite, Missy. The road that
+wound through this belt was without the veriest trace of cover&mdash;so much
+so, that for a considerable time all communication across it was carried
+on by despatch riders, for a cable could never be laid. So if our
+across-the-river brigades had ever been forced to retire in daylight
+they would have been compelled, first to retire two miles over
+absolutely open country, and then to cross bridges of which the
+positions were known with tolerable accuracy to the Germans.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third.</i> On the northern bank four or five spurs came down into the
+plain, parallel with each other and literally at right angles to the
+river. The key to these was a spur known as the Chivres hill or plateau.
+This we found impregnable to the attack of two brigades. It was steep
+and thickly wooded. Its assailants, too, could be heavily enfiladed from
+either flank.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Now you have the position roughly. The tactics of our Division were
+simple. In the early days, when we thought that we had merely a
+determined rearguard in front of us, we attacked. Bridges&mdash;you will
+remember the tale&mdash;were most <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 112]</span><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>heroically built. Two brigades (14th and
+15th) crossed the river and halted at the very foot of the hills, where
+they were almost under cover from alien fire. The third brigade was on
+their right in a position I will describe later.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the two brigades attacked, and attacked with artillery support,
+but they could not advance. That was the first phase. Then orders came
+that we were to act on the defensive, and finally of our three brigades,
+one was on the right, one across the river, and one in a second line of
+trenches on the southern bank of the river acted as divisional reserve.
+That for us was the battle of the Aisne. It was hard fighting all
+through.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>Under these conditions there was plentiful work for despatch riders. I
+am going to try and describe it for you.</p>
+
+<p>When D.H.Q. are stationary, the work of despatch riders is of two kinds.
+First of all you have to find the positions of the units to which you
+are sent. Often the Signal Office gives you the most exiguous
+information. "The 105th Brigade is somewhere near Ciry," or "The Div.
+Train is at a farm just off the Paris-Bordeaux" road.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 113]</span><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a> Starting out with
+these explicit instructions, it is very necessary to remember that they
+may be wrong and are probably misleading. That is not the fault of the
+Signal Office. A Unit changes ground, say from a farm on the road to a
+farm off the road. These two farms are so near each other that there is
+no need to inform the Div. just at present of this change of residence.
+The experienced despatch rider knows that, if he is told the 105th
+Brigade is at 1904 Farm, the Brigade is probably at 1894 Farm, half a
+mile away.</p>
+
+<p>Again, a despatch rider is often sent out after a unit has moved and
+before the message announcing the move has "come through" to the
+Division.</p>
+
+<p>When the Division is advancing or retiring this exploration-work is the
+only work. To find a given brigade, take the place at which it was last
+reported at the Signal Office and assume it was never there. Prefer the
+information you get from your fellow despatch riders. Then find out the
+road along which the brigade is said to be moving. If the brigade may be
+in action, take a road that will bring you to the rear of the brigade.
+If there are troops in front of the brigade, strike for the head of it.
+It is always quicker to ride from van to rear of a brigade than from
+rear to van.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 114]</span><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a></p>
+
+<p>The second kind of work consists in riding along a road already known. A
+clever despatch rider may reduce this to a fine art. He knows exactly at
+which corner he is likely to be sniped, and hurries accordingly. He
+remembers to a yard where the sentries are. If the road is under shell
+fire, he recalls where the shells usually fall, the interval between the
+shells and the times of shelling. For there is order in everything, and
+particularly in German gunnery. Lastly, he does not race along with nose
+on handle-bar. That is a trick practised only by despatch riders who are
+rarely under fire, who have come to a strange and alarming country from
+Corps or Army Headquarters. The experienced motor-cyclist sits up and
+takes notice the whole time. He is able at the end of his ride to give
+an account of all that he has seen on the way.</p>
+
+<p>D.H.Q. were at Serches, a wee village in a hollow at the head of a
+valley. So steeply did the hill rise out of the hollow to the north that
+the village was certainly in dead ground. A fine road went to the west
+along the valley for three miles or so to the Soissons-Rheims road. For
+Venizel you crossed the main road and ran down a little hill through a
+thick wood, terribly dark of nights, to the village; you crossed the
+bridge and opened the throttle.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 115]</span><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a></p>
+
+<p>The first time I rode north from Venizel, Moulders was with me. On the
+left a few hundred yards away an ammunition section that had crossed by
+the pontoon was at full gallop. I was riding fast&mdash;the road was
+loathsomely open&mdash;but not too fast, because it was greasy. A shell
+pitched a couple of hundred yards off the road, and then others, far
+enough away to comfort me.</p>
+
+<p>A mile on the road bends sharp left and right over the railway and past
+a small factory of some sort. The Germans loved this spot, and would
+pitch shells on it with a lamentable frequency. Soon it became too much
+of a routine to be effective. On shelling-days three shells would be
+dropped one after another, an interval of three minutes, and then
+another three. This we found out and rode accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>A hundred yards past the railway you ride into Bucy-le-Long and safety.
+The road swings sharp to the right, and there are houses all the way to
+St Marguerite.</p>
+
+<p>Once I was riding with despatches from D.H.Q. It was a heavy, misty day.
+As I sprinted across the open I saw shrapnel over St Marguerite, but I
+could not make out whether it was German shrapnel bursting over the
+village or our shrapnel bursting over the hills beyond. I slowed down.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 116]</span><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a></p>
+
+<p>Now, as I have told you, on a motor-cycle, if you are going rapidly, you
+cannot hear bullets or shells coming or even shells bursting unless they
+are very near. Running slowly on top, with the engine barely turning
+over, you can hear everything. So I went slow and listened. Through the
+air came the sharp "woop-wing" of shrapnel bursting towards you, the
+most devilish sound of all. Some prefer the shriek of shrapnel to the
+dolorous wail and deep thunderous crash of high explosive. But nothing
+frightens me so much as the shrapnel-shriek.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<p>Well, as I passed the little red factory I noticed that the shrapnel was
+bursting right over the village, which meant that as 80 per cent of
+shrapnel bullets shoot forward the village was comparatively safe. As a
+matter of fact the street was full of ricochetting trifles.</p>
+
+<p>Transport was drawn up well under cover of the wall and troops were
+marching in single file as near to the transport as possible. Two horses
+were being led down the middle of the street. Just before they reached
+me the nose of one of the horses suddenly was gashed and a stream of
+blood poured out. Just a ricochet, and it decided <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 117]</span><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>me. Despatch riders
+have to take care of themselves when H.Q. are eight miles away by road
+and there is no wire. I put my motor-cycle under cover and walked the
+remaining 200 yards.</p>
+
+<p>Coming back I heard some shouting, a momentary silence, then a flare of
+the finest blasphemy. I turned the bend to see an officer holding his
+severed wrist and cursing. He was one of those dashing fellows. He had
+ridden alongside the transport swearing at the men to get a move on. He
+had held up his arm to give the signal when a ricochet took his hand off
+cleanly. His men said not a word,&mdash;sat with an air of calm disapproval
+like Flemish oxen.</p>
+
+<p>It was one in the morning and dark on the road when I took my next
+despatch to St Marguerite. Just out of Bucy I passed Moulders, who
+shouted, "Ware wire and horses." Since last I had seen it the village
+had been unmercifully shelled. Where the transport had been drawn up
+there were shattered waggons. Strewn over the road were dead horses, of
+all carcasses the most ludicrously pitiful, and wound in and out of
+them, a witches' web, crawled the wire from the splintered telegraph
+posts. There was not a sound in the village except the gentle thump of
+my engine. I was forced to pull <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 118]</span><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>up, that I might more clearly see my
+way between two horses. My engine silent, I could only hear a little
+whisper from the house opposite and a dripping that I did not care to
+understand. Farther on a house had fallen half across the road. I
+scarcely dared to start my engine again in the silence of this desolate
+destruction. Then I could not, because the dripping was my petrol and
+not the gore of some slaughtered animal. A flooded carburettor is a
+nuisance in an unsavoury village.</p>
+
+<p>At the eastern end of St Marguerite the road turns sharply south. This
+is "Hell's Own Corner." From it there is a full and open view of the
+Chivres valley, and conversely those in the Chivres valley can see the
+corner very clearly. When we were acting on the offensive, a section of
+4.5 in. howitzers were put into position just at the side of the road by
+the corner. This the Germans may have discovered, or perhaps it was only
+that the corner presented a tempting target, for they shelled to
+destruction everything within a hundred yards. The howitzers were
+rapidly put out of action though not destroyed, and a small orchard just
+behind them was ploughed, riven, and scarred with high explosive and
+shrapnel.</p>
+
+<p>The day St Marguerite was shelled one of <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 119]</span><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>the two brigadiers determined
+to shift his headquarters to a certain farm. N'Soon and Grimers were
+attached to the brigade at the time. "Headquarters" came to the corner.
+N'Soon and Grimers were riding slowly in front. They heard a shell
+coming. Grimers flung himself off his bicycle and dropped like a stone.
+N'Soon opened his throttle and darted forward, foolishly. The shell
+exploded. Grimers' bicycle was covered with branches and he with earth
+and dust. N'Soon for some reason was not touched.</p>
+
+<p>The General and his staff were shelled nearly the whole way to the farm,
+but nobody was hit. The brigade veterinary officer had a theory that the
+safest place was next the General, because generals were rarely hit, but
+that day his faith was shaken, and the next day&mdash;I will tell you the
+story&mdash;it tottered to destruction.</p>
+
+<p>I had come through St Marguerite the night after the brigade had moved.
+Of course I was riding without a light. I rounded Hell's Own Corner
+carefully, very frightened of the noise my engine was making. A little
+farther on I dismounted and stumbled to the postern-gate of a farm. I
+opened it and went in. A sentry challenged me in a whisper and handed me
+over to an orderly, who led me over the black bodies of men sleeping to
+a <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 120]</span><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>lean-to where the General sat with a sheltered light, talking to his
+staff. He was tired and anxious. I delivered my despatch, took the
+receipted envelope and stumbled back to the postern-gate. Silently I
+hauled my motor-cycle inside, then started on my tramp to the General
+who had moved.</p>
+
+<p>After Hell's Own Corner the road swings round again to the east, and
+runs along the foot of the Chivres hill to Missy. A field or so away to
+the left is a thick wood inhabited for the most part by German snipers.
+In the preceding days N'Soon and Sadders had done fine work along this
+road in broad daylight, carrying despatches to Missy.</p>
+
+<p>I was walking, because no motor-cyclist goes by night to a battalion,
+and the noise of a motor-cycle would have advertised the presence of
+brigade headquarters somewhere on the road. It was a joyous tramp of two
+miles into the village of dark, ominous houses. I found a weary
+subaltern who put me on my way, a pitch-black lane between high walls.
+At the bottom of it I stepped upon an officer, who lay across the path
+asleep with his men. So tired was he that he did not wake. On over a
+field to the farm. I delivered my despatch to the Brigade-Major, whose
+eyes were glazed with want of sleep. He spoke to me in the pitiful
+monotone of the unutterably <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 121]</span><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>weary. I fed off bully, hot potatoes, bread
+and honey, then turned in.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning I had just finished my breakfast when a shell exploded
+fifty yards behind the farm, and others followed. "Headquarters" turned
+out, and we crawled along a shallow ditch at the side of a rough country
+road until we were two hundred yards from the farm. We endeavoured to
+get into communication with the other brigade by flag, but after the
+first message a shell dropped among the farther signallers and we saw no
+more of them.</p>
+
+<p>Shells began to drop near us. One fellow came uncomfortably close. It
+covered us with dirt as we "froze" to the bottom of the ditch. A little
+scrap of red-hot metal flew into the ground between me and the signal
+sergeant in front of me. I grabbed it, but dropped it because it was so
+hot; it was sent to the signal sergeant's wife and not to you.</p>
+
+<p>We crawled a hundred yards farther along to a place where the ditch was
+a little deeper, and we were screened by some bushes, but I think the
+General's red hat must have been marked down, because for the next hour
+we lay flat listening to the zip-zip of bullets that passed barely
+overhead.</p>
+
+<p>Just before we moved the Germans started <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 122]</span><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>to shell Missy with heavy
+howitzers. Risking the bullets, we saw the village crowned with great
+lumps of smoke. Our men poured out of it in more or less extended order
+across the fields. I saw them running, poor little khaki figures, and
+dropping like rabbits to the rifles of the snipers in the wood.</p>
+
+<p>Two hundred yards south of the St Marguerite-Missy road&mdash;that is,
+between the road and the ditch in which we were lying&mdash;there is a single
+line of railway on a slight embankment. Ten men in a bunch made for the
+cover it afforded. One little man with an enormous pack ran a few yards
+in front. Seven reached the top of the embankment, then three almost
+simultaneously put their hands before their eyes and dropped across the
+rails. The little man ran on until he reached us, wide-eyed, sweaty, and
+breathing in short gasps. The Brigade-Major shouted to him not to come
+along the road but to make across the field. Immediately the little man
+heard the voice of command he halted, stood almost to attention, and
+choked out, "But they're shelling us"&mdash;then, without another word he
+turned off across the fields and safely reached cover.</p>
+
+<p>In the ditch we were comfortable if confined, and I was frightened when
+the order <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 123]</span><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>came down, "Pass the word for the motor-cyclist." I crawled
+up to the General, received my despatch, and started walking across the
+field. Then I discovered there is a great difference between
+motor-cycling under rifle fire, when you can hear only the very close
+ones, and walking across a heavy turnip-field when you can hear all.
+Two-thirds of the way a sharp zip at the back of my neck and a
+remembrance of the three men stretched across the rails decided me. I
+ran.</p>
+
+<p>At the farm where the other brigade headquarters were stationed I met
+Sadders with a despatch for the general I had just left. When I
+explained to him where and how to go he blenched a little, and the
+bursting of a shell a hundred yards or so away made him jump, but he
+started off at a good round pace. You must remember we were not used to
+carrying despatches on foot.</p>
+
+<p>I rode lazily through St Marguerite and Bucy-le-Long, and turned the
+corner on to the open stretch. There I waited to allow a battery that
+was making the passage to attract as many shells as it liked. The
+battery reached Venizel with the loss of two horses. Then, just as I was
+starting off, a shell plunged into the ground by the little red factory.
+As I knew it to be the first of three I waited again.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 124]</span><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a></p>
+
+<p>At that moment Colonel Seely's car came up, and Colonel Seely himself
+got out and went forward with me to see if the road had been damaged.
+For three minutes the road should have been safe, but the German machine
+became human, and in a couple of minutes Colonel Seely and I returned
+covered with rich red plough and with a singing in our ears. I gave the
+Colonel a couple of hundred yards start, and we sprinted across into the
+safe hands of Venizel.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Missy, which we intermittently occupied, our line extended along
+the foot of the hills and crossed the Aisne about three-quarters of a
+mile short of Cond&eacute; bridge&mdash;and that brings me to a tale.</p>
+
+<p>One night we were healthily asleep after a full day. I had been "next
+for duty" since ten o'clock, but at two I began to doze, because between
+two and five there is not often work for the despatch rider. At three I
+awoke to much shouting and anxious hullabaloo. The intelligence officer
+was rousing us hurriedly&mdash;"All motor-cyclists turn out. Pack up kit.
+Seven wanted at once in the Signal Office."</p>
+
+<p>This meant, firstly, that Divisional Headquarters were to move at once,
+in a hurry, and by night; secondly, that the same despatch was to be
+sent simultaneously to <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 125]</span><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>every unit in the Division. I asked somebody to
+get my kit together, and rushed upstairs to the Signal Office. There on
+the table I saw the fateful wire.</p>
+
+<p>"Germans entrenched south side of Cond&eacute; bridge and are believed to be
+crossing in large numbers." I was given a copy of this message to take
+to the 15th Brigade, then at St Marguerite. Away on the road at full
+speed I thought out what this meant. The enemy had broken through our
+line&mdash;opposite Cond&eacute; there were no reserves&mdash;advance parties of the
+Germans might even now be approaching headquarters&mdash;large numbers would
+cut us off from the Division on our right and would isolate the brigade
+to which I was going; it would mean another Le Cateau.</p>
+
+<p>I tore along to Venizel, and slowing down at the bridge shouted the news
+to the officer in charge&mdash;full speed across the plain to Bucy, and
+caring nothing for the sentries' shouts, on to St Marguerite. I dashed
+into the general's bedroom and aroused him. Almost before I had arrived
+the general and his brigade-major&mdash;both in pyjamas&mdash;were issuing
+commands and writing messages. Sleepy and amazed orderlies were sent out
+at the double. Battalion commanders and the C.R.E. were summoned.</p>
+
+<p>I started back for D.H.Q. with an ac<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 126]</span><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>knowledgment, and rattling through
+the village came out upon the plain.</p>
+
+<p>Over Cond&eacute; bridge an ochreous, heavy dawn broke sullenly. There was no
+noise of firing to tell me that the men of our right brigade were making
+a desperate resistance to a fierce advance. A mile from Serches I passed
+a field-ambulance loaded up for instant flight; the men were standing
+about in little groups talking together, as if without orders. At
+Headquarters I found that a despatch rider had been sent hot-foot to
+summon two despatch riders, who that night were with the corps, and
+others to every unit. Everybody carried the same command&mdash;load up and be
+ready to move at a moment's notice.</p>
+
+<p>Orders to move were never sent. Our two ghastly sentinels still held the
+bridge. It was a <span class="smcap">scare</span>.</p>
+
+<p>The tale that we heard at the time was the tale of a little German
+firing&mdash;a lost patrol of ours, returning by an unauthorised road,
+mistaken in the mist for Germans&mdash;a verbal message that had gone wrong.
+As for the lieutenant who&mdash;it was said&mdash;first started the hare, his name
+was burnt with blasphemy for days and days. The only men who came out of
+it well were some of our cyclists, who, having made their nightly patrol
+up to the bridge, returned just before <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 127]</span><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>dawn to D.H.Q. and found the
+Division trying to make out that it had not been badly frightened.</p>
+
+<p>I did not hear what really happened at the bridge that night until I
+published my paper, "The Battle of the Aisne," in the May 'Blackwood.'
+Here is the story as I had it from the officer principally concerned:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Cond&eacute; bridge was under our control by shell-fire alone, so that we were
+obliged to patrol its unpleasant neighbourhood by night. For this
+purpose an "officer's patrol" was organised (in addition to the
+"standing patrol" provided by the Cyclists) and supplied every night by
+different battalions. So many conflicting reports were received nightly
+about the bridge that the officer who told me the story was appointed
+Brigade Patrolling Officer.</p>
+
+<p>He established himself in a certain wood, and on the night in question
+worked right up beyond Cond&eacute; bridge&mdash;until he found a burning house
+about 200 yards beyond the bridge on the south side of it. In the flare
+of the house he was surprised to discover Germans entrenched in an old
+drain on the British side of the river. He had unknowingly passed this
+body of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>He heard, too, a continuous stream of Germans in the transport marching
+through the woods towards the bridge. Working <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 128]</span><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>his way back, he reported
+the matter personally to the Brigadier of the 13th, who sent the famous
+message to the Division.</p>
+
+<p>It appears that the Germans had come down to fill their water-carts that
+night, and to guard against a surprise attack had pushed forward two
+platoons across the bridge into the drain. Unfortunately one of our
+patrols disobeyed its orders that night and patrolled a forbidden
+stretch of road. The officer shot two of these men in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>Three days later the outpost company on Vesle bridge of the Aisne was
+surrounded, and, later still, Cond&eacute; bridge passed out of our artillery
+control, and was finally crossed by the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>I have written of this famous scare of Cond&eacute; bridge in detail, not
+because it was characteristic, but because it was exceptional. It is the
+only scare we ever had in our Division, and amongst those who were on
+the Aisne, and are still with the Division, it has become a phrase for
+encouragement&mdash;"Only another Cond&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>During the first days on this monotonous river, the days when we
+attacked, the staff of our right brigade advanced for a time into open
+country and took cover behind the right haystack of three. To this
+brigade Huggie took a message early one morning, and continued to take
+messages throughout <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 129]</span><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>the day because&mdash;this was his excuse&mdash;he knew the
+road. It was not until several months later that I gathered by chance
+what had happened on that day, for Huggie, quite the best despatch rider
+in our Division, would always thwart my journalistic curiosity by
+refusing resolutely to talk about himself. The rest of us swopped yarns
+of an evening.</p>
+
+<p>These haystacks were unhealthy: so was the approach to them. First one
+haystack was destroyed. The brigade went to the next. This second was
+blown to bits. The staff took refuge behind the third. In my letters I
+have told you of the good things the other despatch riders in our
+Division have done, but to keep up continuous communication all day with
+this be-shelled and refugee brigade was as fine a piece of despatch
+riding as any. It received its proper reward, as you know.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards the brigade emigrated to a hillside above Ciry, and remained
+there. Now the German gunner in whose sector Ciry was included should
+not be dismissed with a word. He was a man of uncertain temper and
+accurate shooting, for in the first place he would shell Ciry for a few
+minutes at any odd time, and in the second he knocked a gun out in three
+shells and registered accurately, when he pleased, upon the road that
+led up a precipitous hill to the edge of <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 130]</span><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>the Serches hollow. On this
+hill he smashed some regimental transport to firewood and killed a dozen
+horses, and during one of his sudden shellings of the village blew a
+house to pieces just as a despatch rider, who had been told the village
+that morning was healthy, rode by.</p>
+
+<p>You must not think that we were for ever scudding along, like the
+typical "motor-cyclist scout" in the advertisements, surrounded with
+shells. There was many a dull ride even to Bucy-le-Long. An expedition
+to the Div. Train (no longer an errant and untraceable vagabond) was
+safe and produced jam. A ride to Corps Headquarters was only dangerous
+because of the innumerable and bloodthirsty sentries surrounding that
+stronghold.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon a report came through to the Division that a motor-car lay
+derelict at Missy. So "the skipper" called for two volunteers who should
+be expert mechanics. Divisional Signal companies were not then provided
+with cars, and if the C.O. wished to go out to a brigade, which might be
+up to or over eight miles away, he was compelled to ride a horse,
+experiment with a motor-cycle that was probably badly missed by the
+despatch riders, or borrow one of the staff cars. Huggie and the elder
+Cecil volunteered.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 131]</span><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a></p>
+
+<p>As soon as it was dusk they rode down to Sermoise, and crossing by the
+ferry&mdash;it was perilous in the dark&mdash;made their way with difficulty
+across country to Missy, which was then almost in front of our lines.
+They found the car, and examining it discovered that to outward
+appearance it was sound,&mdash;a great moment when after a turn or two of the
+handle the engine roared into the darkness, but the noise was alarming
+enough because the Germans were none too far away.</p>
+
+<p>They started on their journey home&mdash;by St Marguerite and Venizel. Just
+after they had left the village the beam of an alien searchlight came
+sweeping along the road. Before the glare had discovered their nakedness
+they had pulled the car to the side of the road under the shelter of the
+hedge nearest the Germans, and jumping down had taken cover. By all the
+rules of the game it was impossible to drive a car that was not exactly
+silent along the road from Missy to Hell's Own Corner. The searchlight
+should have found them, and the fire of the German snipers should have
+done the rest. But their luck was in, and they made no mistakes.
+Immediately the beam had passed they leaped on to the car and tore
+scathless into St Marguerite and so back to the Division.</p>
+
+<p>After its capture the car was exhibited with <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 132]</span><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>enormous pride to all that
+passed by. We should not have been better pleased if we had captured the
+whole Prussian Guard. For prisoners disappear and cannot always be shown
+to prove the tale. The car was an [Greek: aei kt&ecirc;ma].</p>
+
+<p>In the morning we rode down into Sermoise for the motor-cycles. Sermoise
+had been shelled to pieces, but I shall never forget a brave and
+obstinate inhabitant who, when a shell had gone through his roof and
+demolished the interior of his house, began to patch his roof with
+bully-tins and biscuit-tins that he might at least have shelter from the
+rain.</p>
+
+<p>Elated with our capture of the car we scented greater victories. We
+heard of a motor-boat on the river near Missy, and were filled with
+visions of an armoured motor-boat, stuffed with machine-guns, plying up
+and down the Aisne. Huggie and another made the excursion. The boat was
+in an exposed and altogether unhealthy position, but they examined it,
+and found that there was no starting-handle. In the village forge, which
+was very completely fitted up, they made one that did not fit, and then
+another, but however much they coaxed, the engine would not start. So
+regretfully they left it.</p>
+
+<p>To these adventures there was a quiet background of uncomfortable but
+pleasant <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 133]</span><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>existence. Life on the Aisne was like a "reading party"&mdash;only
+instead of working at our books we worked at soldiering.</p>
+
+<p>The night that Huggie and I slept down at Ciry, the rest of the despatch
+riders, certain that we were taken, encamped at Ferme d'Epitaphe, for
+the flooded roads were impassable. There we found them in the morning,
+and discovered they had prepared the most gorgeous stew of all my
+recollection.</p>
+
+<p>Now, to make a good stew is a fine art, for a stew is not merely a
+conglomeration of bully and vegetables and water boiled together until
+it looks nice. First the potatoes must be cut out to a proper size and
+put in; of potatoes there cannot be too many. As for the vegetables, a
+superfluity of carrots is a burden, and turnips should be used with a
+sparing hand. A full flavour of leek is a great joy. When the vegetables
+are nearly boiled, the dixie should be carefully examined by all to see
+if it is necessary to add water. If in doubt spare the water, for a rich
+thick gravy is much to be desired. Add bully, and get your canteens
+ready.</p>
+
+<p>This particular stew made by Orr was epic. At all other good stews it
+was recalled and discussed, but never did a stew come up to the stew
+that we so scrupulously divided among us on the bright morning of Sept.
+12, 1914, at Ferme d'Epitaphe, above Serches.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 134]</span><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a></p>
+
+<p>Later in the day we took over our billet, a large bicycle shed behind
+the school in which D.H.Q. were installed. The front of it was open, the
+floor was asphalt, the roof dripped, and we shared it with the
+Divisional Cyclists. So close were we packed that you could not turn in
+your sleep without raising a storm of curses, and if you were called out
+of nights you were compelled to walk boldly over prostrate bodies,
+trusting to luck that you did not step on the face of a man who woke
+suddenly and was bigger than yourself.</p>
+
+<p>On the right of our dwelling was a little shed that was once used as a
+guard-room. A man and woman were brought in under suspicion of
+espionage. The woman was put in the shed. There she shrieked the night
+through, shouted for her husband (he had an ugly-sounding name that we
+could not understand), and literally tore her hair. The language of the
+Cyclists was an education even to the despatch riders, who once had been
+told by their Quartermaster-Sergeant that they left the cavalry
+standing. Finally, we petitioned for her removal, and once again slept
+peacefully. The Court of Inquiry found the couple were not spies, but
+unmarried. So it married them and let them go.</p>
+
+<p>The Cyclists were marvellous and indefatigable makers of tea. At any
+unearthly hour <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 135]</span><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>you might be gently shaken by the shoulder and a voice
+would whisper&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Ave a drop o' tea&mdash;real 'ot and plenty o' sugar."</p>
+
+<p>Never have I come back from a night ride without finding a couple of
+cyclists squatting out in the gloom round a little bright fire of their
+own making, with some fine hot tea. Wherever they go may they never want
+a drink!</p>
+
+<p>And never shall I forget that fine bit of roast pork my friend Sergeant
+Croucher insisted on sharing with me one evening! I had not tasted fresh
+meat for weeks.</p>
+
+<p>George was our unofficial Quartermaster. He was and is a great man,
+always cheerful, able to coax bread, vegetables, wine, and other
+luxuries out of the most hardened old Frenchwoman; and the French,
+though ever pathetically eager to do anything for us, always charged a
+good round price. Candles were a great necessity, and could not be
+bought, but George always had candles for us. I forget at the moment
+whether they were for "Le General French, qui arrive," or "Les pauvres,
+pauvres, bless&eacute;s." On two occasions George's genius brought him into
+trouble, for military law consists mainly of the commandment&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thou shalt not allow thyself to be found out."<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 136]</span><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a></p>
+
+<p>We were short of firewood. So George discovered that his engine wanted a
+little tuning, and started out on a voyage of discovery. Soon he came
+upon a heap of neatly cut, neatly piled wood. He loaded up until he
+heard shouts, then fled. That night we had a great fire, but in the
+morning came tribulation. The shouts were the shouts of the C.R.E. and
+the wood was an embryonic bridge. Severely reprimanded.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was the Honey Question. There were bees in the village and we
+had no honey. The reputation of George was at stake. So one night we
+warily and silently approached some hives with candles; unfortunately we
+were interfered with by the military police. Still an expedition into
+the hedgerows and woods always had an excuse in time of war, and we made
+it.</p>
+
+<p>The village of Acy, high on the hill above the road to Venizel, was the
+richest hunting-ground. First, there was a bread-shop open at certain
+hours. George was often late, and, disdaining to take his place in the
+long line of those who were not despatch riders, would march straight in
+and demand bread for one of his two worthy charities. When these were
+looked upon with suspicion he engineered a very friendly understanding
+with the baker's wife.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 137]</span><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a></p>
+
+<p>Then there was a dark little shop where you could buy good red wine, and
+beyond it a farmer with vegetables to sell. But his greatest find was
+the chateau, which clung to the edge of the hill and overlooked the
+valley of the Aisne to Cond&eacute; Fort and the Hill of Chivres.</p>
+
+<p>Searching one morning amongst a pile of captured and derelict stuff we
+discovered a canvas bath. Now, not one of us had had a bath since Havre,
+so we made arrangements. Three of us took the bath up to the chateau,
+then inhabited by a caretaker and his wife. They brought us great pails
+of hot water, and for the first time in a month we were clean. Then we
+had tea and talked about the Germans who had passed through. The German
+officer, the old woman told us, had done them no harm, though he had
+seized everything without paying a sou. Just before he left bad news was
+brought to him. He grew very angry, and shouted to her as he rode off&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You shall suffer for this when we return;" but she laughed and shouted
+back at him, mocking&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When you return!"</p>
+
+<p>And then the English came.</p>
+
+<p>After tea we smoked our pipes in the terraced garden, watched the
+Germans shelling one of our aeroplanes, examined the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 138]</span><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a> German lines, and
+meditated in safety on the war just like newspaper correspondents.</p>
+
+<p>It was in Serches itself that George received the surprise of his life.
+He was after potatoes, and seeing a likely-looking old man pass, D.H.Q.
+ran after him. In his best French&mdash;"Avez-vous pommes-de-terre &agrave; vendre?"
+The old man turned round, smiled, and replied in broadest Yorkshire,
+"Wanting any 'taters?" George collapsed.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that the old fellow had settled in Serches years and years
+before. He had a very pretty daughter, who spoke a delectable mixture of
+Yorkshire and the local dialect. Of course she was suspected of being a
+spy&mdash;in fact, probably was&mdash;so the military police were set to watch
+her,&mdash;a job, I gathered later from one of them, much to their liking.</p>
+
+<p>Our life on the Aisne, except for little exciting episodes, was restful
+enough. We averaged, I should think, a couple of day messages and one
+each night, though there were intermittent periods of high pressure. We
+began to long for the strenuous first days, and the Skipper, finding
+that we were becoming unsettled, put us to drill in our spare time and
+gave some of us riding lessons. Then came rumours of a move to a
+rest-camp, probably back at Compi&egrave;gne.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 139]</span><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a> The 6th Division arrived to take
+over from us, or so we were told, and Rich and Cuffe came over with
+despatches. We had not seen them since Chatham. They regarded us as
+veterans, and we told them the tale.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon some artillery of this division came through the valley.
+They were fine and fresh, but not a single one of us believed they
+equalled ours. There was a line of men to watch them pass, and everybody
+discovered a friend until practically at every stirrup there was a man
+inquiring after a pal, answering questions, and asking what they thought
+in England, and how recruiting was going. The air rang with crude,
+great-hearted jokes. We motor-cyclists stood aside just criticising the
+guns and men and horses. We felt again that shyness we had felt at
+Chatham in front of the professional soldier. Then we remembered that we
+had been through the Retreat and the Advance, and went back to tea
+content.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 140]</span><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MOVE TO THE NORTH.</h3>
+
+
+<p>We left Serches at dusk with little regret and pushed on over the hill
+past Ferme d'Epitaphe of gluttonous memory, past the Headquarter clerks,
+who were jogging peacefully along on bicycles, down the other side of
+the hill, and on to the village of Maast.</p>
+
+<p>Headquarters were in a curious farm. One side of its court was formed by
+a hill in which there were caves&mdash;good shelter for the men. There was
+just one run that night to Corps H.Q. in a chateau three miles farther
+on.</p>
+
+<p>The morning was clear and sunny. A good, lazy breakfast preluded a great
+wash. Then we chatted discreetly with a Paris <i>midinette</i> at the gate of
+the farm. Though not in Flanders, she was of the Flemish type,&mdash;bright
+colouring, high cheek-bones, dark eyes. On these little social
+occasions&mdash;<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 141]</span><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>they came all too rarely; that is why I always mention
+them&mdash;there was much advantage in being only a corporal. Officers, even
+Staff Officers, as they passed threw at us a look of admiration and
+envy. A salute was cheap at the price.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon there was a run, and when I returned I found that the
+rest-camp rumour had been replaced by two others&mdash;either we were going
+into action immediately a little farther along the line beyond Soissons,
+or we were about to make a dash to Ostend for the purpose of outflanking
+the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>We moved again at dusk, and getting clear of the two brigades with H.Q.
+rode rapidly twenty miles across country, passing over the road by which
+we had advanced, to Longpont, a big dark chateau set in a wood and with
+a French sentry at the gate. Our third brigade was trekking away into
+the darkness as we came in. We slept in a large room on straw
+mattresses&mdash;very comforting to the bones.</p>
+
+<p>The morning was again gorgeous, and again we breakfasted late and well.
+The chateau we discovered to be monumental, and beside it, set in a
+beautiful garden, was a ruined chapel, where a service was held&mdash;the
+first we had been able to attend since the beginning of the war.</p>
+
+<p>Our host, an old man, thin and lithe, and <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 142]</span><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>dressed in shiny black, came
+round during the day to see that we had all we needed. We heard a
+tale&mdash;I do not know how true it was&mdash;that the Crown Prince had stayed at
+the chateau. He had drunk much ancient and good wine, and what he had
+not drunk he had taken away with him, together with some objects of art.
+The chateau was full of good things.</p>
+
+<p>During the day I had a magnificent run of forty miles over straight dry
+roads to Hartennes, where, if you will remember, that great man,
+Sergeant Croucher of the cyclists, had given us tea, and on to Chacrise
+and Maast. It was the first long and open run I had had since the days
+of the retreat, when starting from La Pommeraye I had ridden through the
+forest to Compi&egrave;gne in search of the Divisional Train.</p>
+
+<p>Just after I had returned we started off again&mdash;at dusk. I was sent
+round to a place, the name of which I cannot remember, to a certain
+division; then I struck north along a straight road through the forest
+to Villers-Cotterets. The town was crammed with French motor-lorries and
+crowded with French troops, who greeted me hilariously as I rode through
+to V&eacute;ze.</p>
+
+<p>There we slept comfortably in the lodge of the chateau, all, that is,
+except Grimers, who had been seized with a puncture <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 143]</span><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>just outside the
+main hotel in Villers-Cotterets.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning I had a fine run to a brigade at B&eacute;thancourt, the little
+village, you will remember, where we lunched off an excellent omelette,
+and convinced the populace, with the help of our host, that the Germans
+would come no farther.</p>
+
+<p>While I was away the rest discovered some excellent white wine in the
+cellar of the lodge, and before starting again at dusk we made a fine
+meal. Cecil and I remained after the others had gone, and when the wife
+of the lodge-keeper came in and expressed her utter detestation of all
+troops, we told her that we were shedding our blood for France, and
+offered her forgetfully a glass of her own good wine.</p>
+
+<p>That night we slept at B&eacute;thisy St Martin. On the retreat, you will
+remember, the lord of the chateau had given some of the despatch riders
+dinner, before they learnt that D.H.Q. had been diverted to
+Cr&eacute;cy-en-Valois. He recognised us with joy, allowed us to take things
+from the kitchen, and in the morning hunted out for us a tennis set.
+Four of us who were not on duty played a great game on a very passable
+gravel court.</p>
+
+<p>We now heard that "the Division" was convinced that we were going to
+make a dash for Ostend, and rumour seemed to <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 144]</span><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>crystallise into truth
+when orders came that we were to entrain that night at Pont St Maxence.</p>
+
+<p>The despatch riders rode ahead of the column, and received a joyous
+welcome in the town. We stalked bravely into a caf&eacute;, and drank loud and
+hearty toasts with some friendly but rather drunk French soldiers.
+Gascons they were, and d'Artagnans all, from their proper boasting&mdash;the
+heart of a lion and the cunning of a fox, they said. One of us was
+called into a more sober chamber to drink ceremonious toasts in
+champagne with their officers. In the street another of us&mdash;I would not
+give even his initial&mdash;selecting the leading representative of young,
+demure, and ornamental maidenhood, embraced her in the middle of the
+most admiring crowd I have ever seen, while the rest of us explained to
+a half-angry mother that her daughter should be proud and happy&mdash;as
+indeed she was&mdash;to represent the respectable and historic town of Pont
+St Maxence.</p>
+
+<p>Then, amidst shrieks and cheers and cries of "Brave Tommy" and "We love
+you," the despatch riders of the finest and most famous of all Divisions
+rode singing to the station, where we slept peacefully on straw beside a
+large fire until the train came in and the Signal Company arrived.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 145]</span><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a></p>
+
+<p>Our entraining at Pont St Maxence began with a carouse and ended with a
+cumulative disappointment. In the middle was the usual wait, a tiresome
+but necessary part of all military evolutions. To entrain a Signal
+Company sounds so simple. Here is the company&mdash;there is the train. But
+first comes the man-handling of cable-carts on to trucks that were built
+for the languid conveyance of perambulators. Then follows a little
+horseplay, and only those who, like myself, regard horses as
+unmechanical and self-willed instruments of war, know how terrifying a
+sight and how difficult a task the emboxing of a company's horses can
+be. Motor-cycles are heavy and have to be lifted, but they do not make
+noises and jib and rear, and look every moment as if they were going to
+fall backward on to the interested spectator.</p>
+
+<p>We despatch riders fetched a great deal of straw and made ourselves
+comfortable in one of those waggons that are marked outside, with such
+splendid optimism&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Chevaux">
+<tr><td align='left'><i>Chevaux</i></td><td align='center'>&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</td><td align='center'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><i>Hommes</i></td><td align='center'>&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</td><td align='center'>40-5</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>With our friend the Post-Sergeant and his underling there were roughly a
+dozen of us and no superfluity of space, but, seeing men wandering
+fiercely up and down the train <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 146]</span><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>under the command of our Sergeant-Major,
+we took in a H.Q. clerk. This ruffled us, but it had to be done. The
+Sergeant-Major came to our waggon. We stood at the door and pointed out
+to him that we had in our waggon not only all the despatch riders, but
+also the whole of the Postal and Headquarters Staffs. He said nothing to
+us&mdash;only told ten more men to get in. Finally we were twenty-five in
+all, with full equipment. Thinking of the 40-5 we settled down and
+managed to effect a compromise of room which, to our amazement, left us
+infinitely more comfortable than we had been in the III<sup>me</sup> coming up
+from Havre to Landrecies.</p>
+
+<p>The train shuffled out of the station just before dawn. We slept a bit,
+and then, just as it was getting light, started our pipes and began to
+talk of the future.</p>
+
+<p>The general opinion favoured Ostend, though a sergeant hazarded that we
+were going to be shipped swiftly across to England to defend the East
+Coast. This suggestion was voted impossible and tactless&mdash;at least, we
+didn't put it quite like that. Ostend it was going to be&mdash;train to
+Abb&eacute;ville, and then boat to Ostend, and a rapid march against the German
+flank.</p>
+
+<p>The discussion was interrupted by somebody saying he had heard from
+somebody <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 147]</span><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>who had been told by his Major, that 60,000 Germans had been
+killed in the last two days, Von Kluck had been killed by a lucky shell,
+and the Crown Prince had committed suicide. We were bringing the
+cynicism of youth to bear on the trustfulness of a mature mercenary when
+the train arrived at Amiens.</p>
+
+<p>Some washed. Some meditated on a train of French wounded and another
+train of Belgian refugees, humble and pitiful objects, very smelly. Two,
+not waiting for orders, rushed to the buffet and bought beer and
+sardines and chocolate and bread. One of these was cut off from his
+waggon by a long goods train that passed through, but he knew the ways
+of military trains, waited till the goods had passed, then ran after us
+and caught us up after a mile's jog-trot. The good people of Amiens, who
+had not so very long before been delivered from the Germans, were
+exceedingly affectionate, and threw us fruit, flowers, and kisses. Those
+under military age shrieked at the top of their shrill little trebles&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Engleesh&mdash;Tipperary&mdash;Biskeet&mdash;Biskeet&mdash;Souvenir.</p>
+
+<p>We have never understood the cry of "Biskeet." The fat little fellows
+were obviously well nourished. Perhaps, dog-like, they buried their
+biscuits with a thought for <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 148]</span><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>the time when the English should be
+forgotten and hunger should take their place as something very present.</p>
+
+<p>So joyously we were rushed north at about five miles an hour, or eight
+kilometres per hour, which sounds better. Early in the afternoon we came
+to Abb&eacute;ville, a hot and quiet station, and, with the aid of some London
+Scottish, disembarked. From these Scots we learnt that the French were
+having a rough time just north of Arras, that train-load upon train-load
+of wounded had come through, that our Corps (the 2nd) was going up to
+help.</p>
+
+<p>So even now we do not know whether we really were going to Ostend and
+were diverted to the La Bass&eacute;e district to help the French who had got
+themselves into a hole, or whether Ostend was somebody's little tale.</p>
+
+<p>We rode through the town to the Great Barracks, where we were given a
+large and clean ward. The washing arrangements were sumptuous and we had
+truckle-beds to sleep upon, but the sanitation, as everywhere in France,
+was vile. We kicked a football about on the drill-ground. Then some of
+us went down into the town, while the rest of us waited impatiently for
+them to come back, taking a despatch or two in the meanwhile.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 149]</span><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a></p>
+
+<p>From the despatch rider's point of view Abb&eacute;ville is a large and
+admiring town, with good restaurants and better baths. These baths were
+finer than the baths of Havre&mdash;full of sweet-scented odours and the
+deliciously intoxicating fumes of good soap and plenteous boiling-water.</p>
+
+<p>In a little restaurant we met some friends of the 3rd Division and a
+couple of London Scots, who were getting heartily sick of the L. of C.,
+though taking prisoners round the outskirts of Paris had, I gather, its
+charm even for the most ardent warriors.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning there was parade, a little football, and then a stroll
+into the town. I had just finished showing an Intelligence Officer how
+to get a belt back on to the pulley of his motor-cycle when Cecil met me
+and told me we were to move north that evening.</p>
+
+<p>We had a delectable little tea, bought a map or two, and then strolled
+back to the barracks. In half an hour we were ready to move off, kit
+piled high upon our carriers, looking for all the world (said our C.O.)
+like those funny little animals that carry their houses upon their backs
+and live at the bottom of ponds. Indeed it was our boast that&mdash;such was
+our ingenuity&mdash;we were able to carry more kit than any regimental
+officer.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 150]</span><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a></p>
+
+<p>It was dusk when N'Soon and I pushed off,&mdash;we had remained behind to
+deal with messages that might come in foolishly after the Division had
+left. We took the great highroad to Calais, and, carefully passing the
+General, who was clattering along with his staff and an escort of
+Hussars, we pulled up to light our lamps at a little estaminet with
+glowing red blinds just like the blinds of certain hospitable taverns in
+the city of Oxford. The coincidence was so remarkable that we were
+compelled to enter.</p>
+
+<p>We found a roaring, leaping log-fire, a courteous old Frenchman who
+drank our healths, an immense omelette, some particularly good coffee,
+and the other despatch riders.</p>
+
+<p>That night it was freezing hard. With our chairs drawn in close to the
+fire, a glass of something to keep the cold out ready to hand, and pipes
+going strong, we felt sorry for the general and his escort who, probably
+with chilled lips and numbed fingers, jogged resoundingly through the
+village street.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty minutes later we took the road, and soon, pretending that we had
+lost our way, again passed the general&mdash;and lost our way, or at least
+rode well past our turning. Finally, colder than we had ever been
+before, we reached the Chateau at Gueschart. There we found a charming
+and hospitable son of <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 151]</span><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>the house and a pleasantly adoring lad. With
+their aid we piled the floor of the harness-room with straw, and those
+of us who were not on duty slept finely.</p>
+
+<p>From the dawn of the next morning we were working at top pressure right
+through the day, keeping in touch with the brigades which were billeted
+in villages several miles distant.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon we discovered we were very short of petrol, so I
+was sent off to Cr&eacute;cy in our famous captured car, with a requisition. We
+arrived amidst cheers. I strode into the nearest garage and demanded 100
+litres of petrol. It was humbly brought and placed in the car: then I
+sent boys flying round the town for jam and bread and butter, and in the
+meantime we entertained the crowd by showing them a German helmet. I
+explained volubly that my bandaged fingers&mdash;there was an affair of
+outposts with an ambulance near Serches&mdash;were the work of shrapnel, and
+they nearly embraced me. A boy came back and said there was no jam, so
+the daughter of the house went to her private cupboard and brought me
+out two jars of jam she had made herself, and an enormous glass of wine.
+We drove off amidst more cheers, to take the wrong road out of the town
+in our great excitement.</p>
+
+<p>The brigades moved that night; head<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 152]</span><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>quarters remained at Gueschart until
+dawn, when the general started off in his car with two of us attendant.</p>
+
+<p>Now before the war a motor-cyclist would consider himself ill-used if he
+were forced to take a car's dust for a mile or so. Your despatch rider
+was compelled to follow in the wake of a large and fast Daimler for
+twenty-five miles, and at the end of it he did not know which was him
+and which dust.</p>
+
+<p>We came upon the 15th, shivering in the morning cold, and waiting for
+some French motor-buses. Then we rushed on to St Pol, which was crammed
+full of French transport, and on to Chateau Bryas. Until the other
+despatch riders came up there was no rest for the two of us that had
+accompanied the car. The roads, too, were blocked with refugees flying
+south from Lille and men of military age who had been called up. Once
+again we heard the distant sound of guns&mdash;for the first time since we
+had been at the Chateau of Longpont.</p>
+
+<p>At last we were relieved for an hour, and taking possession of a kitchen
+we fried some pork-chops with onions and potatoes. It was grand. We
+washed them down with coffee, and went back to duty. For the remainder
+of that day and for the whole of the night there was no rest for us.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 153]</span><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a></p>
+
+<p>At dawn the Division marched in column of route north-east towards the
+sound of the guns.</p>
+
+<p>Half of us at a time slipped away and fed in stinking taverns&mdash;but the
+food was good.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot remember a hotter day, and we were marching through a
+thickly-populated mining district&mdash;the villages were uncomfortably like
+those round Dour. The people were enthusiastic and generous with their
+fruit and with their chocolate. It was very tiring work, because we were
+compelled to ride with the Staff, for first one of us was needed and
+then another to take messages up and down the column or across country
+to brigades and divisions that were advancing along roads parallel to
+ours. The old Division was making barely one mile an hour. The road was
+blocked by French transport coming in the opposite direction, by 'buses
+drawn up at the side of the road, and by cavalry that, trekking from the
+Aisne, crossed our front continuously to take up their position away on
+the left.</p>
+
+<p>At last, about three o'clock in the afternoon, we reached the outskirts
+of B&eacute;thune. The sound of the guns was very near, and to the east of the
+town we could see an aeroplane haloed in bursting shrapnel.</p>
+
+<p>The Staff took refuge first in an unsavoury field and afterwards in a
+little house. De<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 154]</span><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>spatch after despatch until evening&mdash;and then, ordered
+to remain behind to direct others, and cheered by the sight of our most
+revered and most short-sighted staff-officer walking straight over a
+little bridge into a deep, muddy, and stinking ditch, I took refuge in
+the kitchen and experienced the discreeter pleasures of "the Force." The
+handmaidens brought coffee, and brushed me and washed me and talked to
+me. I was sorry when the time came for me to resume my beat, or rather
+to ride with Cecil after the Division.</p>
+
+<p>We passed some Turcos, happy-looking children but ill companions in a
+hostile country, and some Spahis with flowing burnous, who looked
+ridiculously out of place, and then, after a long search&mdash;it was dark on
+the road and very cold&mdash;we found the Division.</p>
+
+<p>I dined off a maconochie, and was wondering whether I dare lie down to
+sleep, when I was called out to take a message to and remain at the 13th
+Brigade. It was a bad night. Never was a man so cold in his life, and
+the brigade had taken up its quarters in a farm situated in the centre
+of a very labyrinth of country roads. But I had four hours' sleep when I
+got there, while the others were up all the night.</p>
+
+<p>There was no hurry in the morning. The <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 155]</span><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>orders were to join the Division
+at a bridge just outside B&eacute;thune, a point which they could not possibly
+reach before ten. So I got up late and had a glorious meal of soup,
+omelette, and fruit in the town, waited on by a most excellent flapper
+who wanted to know everything about everything. I reported at the Signal
+Office, then occupying the lodge of the town cemetery, and was sent off
+to catch the Devons. At the village where I waited for them I found some
+Cuirassiers, genial fellows; but living helios in the burning sun. When
+I returned the Division had moved along the north bank of the Canal to
+Beuvry Station. The post picked us up, and in the joyous possession of
+two parcels and some letters I unpacked my kit. We all settled down on
+some moderately clean straw in the waiting-room of the station, and
+there we remained for three full weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Men talk of the battle of Ypres<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> as the finest achievement of the
+British Army. There was one brigade there that had a past. It had fought
+at Mons and Le Cateau, and then plugged away cheerfully through the
+Retreat and the Advance. What was left of it had fought stiffly on the
+Aisne. Some hard marching, a train journey, more hard marching, and it
+was thrown into action at La Bass&eacute;e. There it fought itself to a
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 156]</span><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>standstill. It was attacked and attacked until, shattered, it was
+driven back one wild night. It was rallied, and turning on the enemy
+held them. More hard marching&mdash;a couple of days' rest, and it staggered
+into action at Ypres, and somehow&mdash;no one knows how&mdash;it held its bit of
+line. A brigade called by the same name, consisting of the same
+regiments, commanded by the same general, but containing scarce a man of
+those who had come out in August, marched very proudly away from Ypres
+and went&mdash;not to rest&mdash;but to hold another bit of the line.</p>
+
+<p>And this brigade was not the Guards Brigade. There were no picked men in
+the brigade. It contained just four ordinary regiments of the line&mdash;the
+Norfolks, the Bedfords, the Cheshires, and the Dorsets. What the 15th
+Brigade did, other brigades have done.</p>
+
+<p>Now little has been heard of this fighting round La Bass&eacute;e in October,
+so I wish I could tell you about it in more detail than I can. To my
+thinking it was the finest fighting I have seen.</p>
+
+<p>You will understand, then, how difficult it is for me to describe the
+country round La Bass&eacute;e. I might describe it as it appeared to me when
+first we arrived&mdash;sunny and joyous, with many little farms and thick
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 157]</span><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>hedges and rare factories&mdash;or as I saw it last, on a horrible yellowish
+evening, shattered and black and flooded and full of ghosts.</p>
+
+<p>Now when first we arrived news filtered through to us that La Bass&eacute;e was
+held only by a division of J&auml;gers, plentifully supplied with artillery
+and machine guns. I believe this was the fact. The J&auml;gers held on
+stubbornly until reinforcements came up. Instead of attacking we were
+hard pressed, and had more than we could do to prevent the Germans in
+their turn from breaking through. Indeed we had not a kick left in us
+when the Division was relieved.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning it looked so simple. The British Army was wheeling
+round on to the German right flank. We had the shortest distance to go,
+because we formed the extreme British right. On our left was the 3rd
+Division, and beyond the 3rd was the First Corps. On the left of the
+First the Third Corps was sweeping on to Armenti&egrave;res.</p>
+
+<p>Then Antwerp fell suddenly. The First Corps was rushed up to help the
+Seventh Division which was trying to guard the right flank of the
+Belgians in retirement along the coast. Thus some sort of very weak line
+was formed from the sea to La Bass&eacute;e. The Germans, reinforced by the
+men, and more <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 158]</span><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>particularly by the guns that the fall of Antwerp had let
+loose, attacked violently at Ypres and La Bass&eacute;e. I do not say this is
+what really happened. I am trying to tell you what we thought was
+happening.</p>
+
+<p>Think of us, then, in the heat of early October going into action on the
+left of the French, confident that we had just a little opposition to
+brush away in front of us before we concentrated in the square at La
+Bass&eacute;e.</p>
+
+<p>At first the 13th Brigade was put into position south of the canal, the
+15th Brigade attacked from the canal to the La Bass&eacute;e-Estaires road, and
+the 14th from the main road roughly to the Richebourgs. In the second
+stage the French extended their line to the Canal, and the 13th became a
+reserve brigade. In the third stage we had every man in the line&mdash;the
+13th Brigade being split up between the 14th and 15th, and the French
+sent two battalions to the north bank of the canal.</p>
+
+<p>The work of the despatch riders was of two kinds. Three-quarters of us
+rode between the divisional and the brigade headquarters. The rest were
+attached to the brigades, and either used for miscellaneous work or held
+in reserve so that communication might not be broken if the wires were
+cut or smashed by shells.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 159]</span><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a></p>
+
+<p>One motor-cyclist went out every day to Lieutenant Chapman, who was
+acting as liaison officer with the French. This job never fell to my
+lot, but I am told it was exciting enough. The French general was an
+intrepid old fellow, who believed that a general should be near his
+fighting men. So his headquarters were always being shelled. Then he
+would not retire, but preferred to descend into the cellar until the
+evil times were overpast.</p>
+
+<p>The despatch rider with Chapman had his bellyful of shells. It was
+pleasant to sit calmly in a cellar and receive food at the hands of an
+accomplished <i>chef</i>, and in more peaceful times there was opportunity to
+study the idiosyncrasies of German gunners and the peculiar merits of
+the Soixante-Quinze. But when the shelling was hottest there was usually
+work for the despatch rider&mdash;and getting away from the unhealthy area
+before scooting down the Annequin road was a heart-thumping job.</p>
+
+<p>French generals were always considerate and hospitable to us despatch
+riders. On our arrival at B&eacute;thune Huggie was sent off with a message to
+a certain French Corps Commander. The General received him with a proper
+French embrace, congratulated him on our English bravery, and set him
+down to some food and a glass of good wine.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 160]</span><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a></p>
+
+<p>It was at La Bass&eacute;e that we had our first experience of utterly
+unrideable roads. North of the canal the roads were fair macadam in dry
+weather and to the south the main road B&eacute;thune-Beuvry-Annequin was of
+the finest pav&eacute;. Then it rained hard. First the roads became greasy
+beyond belief. Starting was perilous, and the slightest injudicious
+swerve meant a bad skid. Between Gorre and Festubert the road was vile.
+It went on raining, and the roads were thickly covered with glutinous
+mud. The front mud-guard of George's Douglas choked up with a lamentable
+frequency. The Blackburne alone, the finest and most even-running of all
+motor-cycles,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> ran with unswerving regularity.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, to our heartburning sorrow, there were nights on which
+motor-cycling became impossible, and we stayed restlessly at home while
+men on the despised horse carried our despatches. This we could not
+allow for long. Soon we became so skilled that, if I remember correctly,
+it was only on half a <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 161]</span><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>dozen nights in all right through the winter that
+the horsemen were required.</p>
+
+<p>It was at La Bass&eacute;e too that we had our second casualty. A despatch
+rider whom we called "Moulders" came in one evening full of triumph. A
+bullet had just grazed his leg and the Government was compelled to
+provide him with a new puttee. We were jealous, and he was proud.</p>
+
+<p>We slept in that room which was no room, the entrance-hall of Beuvry
+Station. It was small and crowded. The floor was covered with straw
+which we could not renew. After the first fortnight the population of
+this chamber increased rapidly; one or two of us spoke of himself
+hereafter in the plural. They gave far less trouble than we had
+expected, and, though always with some of us until the spring, suffered
+heavy casualties from the use of copious petrol and the baking of washed
+shirts in the village oven.</p>
+
+<p>We had been given a cook of our own. He was a youth of dreamy habits and
+acquisitive tastes, but sometimes made a good stew. Each one of us
+thought he himself was talented beyond the ordinary, so the cook never
+wanted assistance&mdash;except perhaps in the preparing of breakfast. Food
+was good and plentiful, while the monotony of army rations was broken by
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 162]</span><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>supplies from home and from B&eacute;thune. George, thank heaven, was still
+with us.</p>
+
+<p>Across the bridge was a shop where you could buy anything from a pair of
+boots to a kilo of vermicelli. Those of us who were not on duty would
+wander in about eleven in the morning, drink multitudinous bowls of
+coffee at two sous the bowl, and pass the time of day with some of the
+cyclists who were billeted in the big brewery. Just down the road was a
+tavern where infernal cognac could be got and occasionally good red
+wine.</p>
+
+<p>Even when there was little to do, the station was not dull. French
+hussars, dainty men with thin and graceful horses, rode over the bridge
+and along the canal every morning. Cuirassiers would clatter and swagger
+by&mdash;and guns, both French and English. Behind the station much
+ammunition was stored, a source of keen pleasure if ever the Germans had
+attempted to shell the station. It was well within range. During the
+last week His Majesty's armoured train, "Jellicoe," painted in wondrous
+colours, would rumble in and on towards La Bass&eacute;e. The crew were full of
+Antwerp tales and late newspapers. The first time the train went into
+action it demolished a German battery, but afterwards it had little
+luck.</p>
+
+<p>The corps was at Hinges. If work were <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 163]</span><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>slack and the Signal Sergeant
+were kind, he would give one of us a bunch of messages for the corps,
+with the hint that the return might be made at leisure. Between Hinges
+and Beuvry lay B&eacute;thune. Hinges deserves a word.</p>
+
+<p>When first the corps came to Hinges, the inhabitants were exalted. The
+small boys came out in puttees and the women put ribbons in their hair.
+Now, if you pronounce Hinges in the French fashion, you give forth an
+exclamation of distressful pain. The name cannot be shouted from a
+motor-cycle. It has its difficulties even for the student of French. So
+we all called it, plainly and bluntly, Hinges, as though it were
+connected to a door. The inhabitants noticed this. Thinking that they
+and their forefathers had been wrong&mdash;for surely these fine men with red
+hats knew better than they&mdash;the English pronunciation spread. The
+village became 'Ingees, and now only some unfashionable dotards in
+B&eacute;thune preserve the tradition of the old pronunciation. It is not only
+Hinges that has been thus decently attired in British garb. Le Cateau is
+Lee Cat&ograve;o. Boescheppe is Bo-peep. Ouderdon is Eiderdown.</p>
+
+<p>B&eacute;thune was full of simple pleasures. First there were the public baths,
+cheap and good, and sundry coiffeurs who were much <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 164]</span><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>in demand, for they
+made you smell sweetly. Then there was a little blue and white caf&eacute;. The
+daughter of the house was well-favoured and played the piano with some
+skill. One of us spent all his spare time at this caf&eacute; in silent
+adoration&mdash;of the piano, for his French was exiguous in the extreme.
+There was a patisserie crammed full of the most delicious cream-cakes.
+The despatch rider who went to Hinges about 3.30 <span class="smcap">p.m</span>. and did
+not return with cakes for tea, found life unpleasant. Near the station
+three damsels ruled a tavern. They were friendly and eager to teach us
+French. We might have left them with a sigh of regret if we had not once
+arrived as they were eating their midday meal.</p>
+
+<p>At one time the Germans dropped a few shells into B&eacute;thune, but did
+little damage. Bombs fell too. One nearly ended the existence of
+"Sadders"&mdash;also known as "Boo." It dropped on the other side of the
+street; doing our despatch rider no damage, it slightly wounded Sergeant
+Croucher of the Cyclists in a portion of his body that made him swear
+when he was classed as a "sitting-up case."</p>
+
+<p>Of all the towns behind the lines&mdash;B&eacute;thune, Estaires, Armenti&egrave;res,
+Bailleul, Poperinghe&mdash;B&eacute;thune is the pleasantest. The people are
+charming. There is nothing <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 165]</span><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>you cannot buy there. It is clean and
+well-ordered, and cheerful in the rain. I pray that B&eacute;thune may survive
+the war&mdash;that after peace has been declared and Berlin has been entered,
+I may spend a week there and much money to the profit of the people and
+the satisfaction of myself.</p>
+
+<p>Now I will give some account of our adventures out with the brigades
+round La Bass&eacute;e.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 166]</span><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/map5.jpg"><img src="./images/map5-tb.jpg" alt="ROUND LA BASS&Eacute;E" title="ROUND LA BASS&Eacute;E" /></a></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 167]</span><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>ROUND LA ASS&Eacute;E.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It had been a melancholy day, full of rain and doubting news. Those of
+us who were not "out" were strolling up and down the platform arranging
+the order of cakes from home and trying to gather from the sound of the
+gunning and intermittent visits to the Signal Office what was happening.</p>
+
+<p>Someone had been told that the old 15th was being hard pressed. Each of
+us regretted loudly that we had not been attached to it, though our
+hearts spoke differently. Despatch riders have muddled thoughts. There
+is a longing for the excitement of danger and a very earnest desire to
+keep away from it.</p>
+
+<p>The C.O. walked on to the platform hurriedly, and in a minute or two I
+was off. It was lucky that the road was covered with unholy grease, that
+the light was bad <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 168]</span><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>and there was transport on the road&mdash;for it is not
+good for a despatch rider to think too much of what is before him. My
+instructions were to report to the general and make myself useful. I was
+also cheerfully informed that the H.Q. of the 15th were under a robust
+shell-fire. Little parties of sad-looking wounded that I passed, the
+noise of the guns, and the evil dusk heartened me.</p>
+
+<p>I rode into Festubert, which was full of noise, and, very hastily
+dismounting, put my motor-cycle under the cover of an arch and reported
+to the general. He was sitting at a table in the stuffy room of a
+particularly dirty tavern. At the far end a fat and frightened woman was
+crooning to her child. Beside her sat a wrinkled, leathery old man with
+bandaged head. He had wandered into the street, and he had been cut
+about by shrapnel. The few wits he had ever possessed were gone, and he
+gave every few seconds little croaks of hate. Three telephone operators
+were working with strained faces at their highest speed. The windows had
+been smashed by shrapnel, and bits of glass and things crunched under
+foot. The room was full of noises&mdash;the crackle of the telephones, the
+crooning of the woman, the croak of the wounded old man, the clear and
+incisive <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 169]</span><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>tones of the general and his brigade-major, the rattle of not
+too distant rifles, the booming of guns and occasionally the terrific,
+overwhelming crash of a shell bursting in the village.</p>
+
+<p>I was given a glass of wine. Cadell, the Brigade Signal Officer, and the
+Veterinary Officer, came up to me and talked cheerfully in whispered
+tones about our friends.</p>
+
+<p>There was the sharp cry of shrapnel in the street and a sudden rattle
+against the whole house. The woman and child fled somewhere through a
+door, followed feebly by the old man. The brigade-major persuaded the
+general to work in some less unhealthy place. The telephone operators
+moved. A moment's delay as the general endeavoured to persuade the
+brigade-major to go first, and we found ourselves under a stalwart arch
+that led into the courtyard of the tavern. We lit pipes and cigarettes.
+The crashes of bursting shells grew more frequent, and the general
+remarked in a dry and injured tone&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Their usual little evening shoot before putting up the shutters, I
+suppose."</p>
+
+<p>But first the Germans "searched" the village. Now to search a village
+means to start at one end of the village and place shells at discreet
+intervals until the other end of the village is reached. It is an
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 170]</span><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>unpleasant process for those in the middle of the village, even though
+they be standing, as we were, in comparatively good shelter.</p>
+
+<p>We heard the Germans start at the other end of the village street. The
+crashes came nearer and nearer, until a shell burst with a scream and a
+thunderous roar just on our right. We puffed away at our cigarettes for
+a second, and a certain despatch rider wished he were anywhere but in
+the cursed village of Festubert by B&eacute;thune. There was another scream and
+overwhelming relief. The next shell burst three houses away on our left.
+I knocked my pipe out and filled another.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans finished their little evening shoot. We marched back very
+slowly in the darkness to 1910 Farm.</p>
+
+<p>This farm was neither savoury nor safe. It was built round a courtyard
+which consisted of a gigantic hole crammed with manure in all the stages
+of unpleasant putrefaction. One side is a barn; two sides consist of
+stables, and the third is the house inhabited not only by us but by an
+incredibly filthy and stinking old woman who was continually troubling
+the general because some months ago a French cuirassier took one of her
+chickens. The day after we arrived at this farm I had few despatches to
+take, so I wrote to Robert.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 171]</span><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a> Here is some of the letter and bits of
+other letters I wrote during the following days. They will give you an
+idea of our state of mind:<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>If you want something of the dramatic&mdash;I am writing in a farm under
+shrapnel fire, smoking a pipe that was broken by a shell. For true
+effect I suppose I should not tell you that the shrapnel is bursting
+about fifty yards the other side of the house, that I am in a room lying
+on the floor, and consequently that, so long as they go on firing
+shrapnel, I am perfectly safe.</p>
+
+<p>It's the dismallest of places. Two miles farther back the heavies are
+banging away over our heads. There are a couple of batteries near the
+farm. Two miles along the road the four battalions of our brigade are
+holding on for dear life in their trenches.</p>
+
+<p>The country is open plough, with little clumps of trees, sparse hedges,
+and isolated cottages giving a precarious cover. It's all very damp and
+miserable, for it was raining hard last night and the day before.</p>
+
+<p>I am in a little bare room with the floor covered with straw. Two
+telegraph operators are making that infernal jerky clicking sound I have
+begun so to hate. Half a<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 172]</span><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a> dozen men of the signal staff are lying about
+the floor looking at week-old papers. In the next room I can hear the
+general, seated at a table and intent on his map, talking to an officer
+that has just come from the firing line. Outside the window a gun is
+making a fiendish row, shaking the whole house. Occasionally there is a
+bit of a rattle&mdash;that's shrapnel bullets falling on the tiles of an
+outhouse.</p>
+
+<p>If you came out you might probably find this exhilarating. I have just
+had a talk with our mutual friend Cadell, the Signal Officer of this
+brigade, and we have decided that we are fed up with it. For one
+thing&mdash;after two months' experience of shell fire the sound of a shell
+bursting within measurable distance makes you start and shiver for a
+moment&mdash;reflex action of the nerves. That is annoying. We both decided
+we would willingly change places with you and take a turn at defending
+your doubtless excellently executed trenches at Liberton.</p>
+
+<p>The line to the &mdash;&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> has just gone. It's almost certain death to
+relay it in the day-time. Cadell and his men are discussing the chances
+while somebody else has started a musical-box. A man has gone out; I
+wonder if he will come back. The rest of <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 173]</span><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>the men have gone to sleep
+again. That gun outside the window is getting on my nerves. Well, well!</p>
+
+<p>The shrapnel fire appears to have stopped for the present. No, there's a
+couple together. If they fire over this farm I hope they don't send me
+back to D.H.Q.</p>
+
+<p>Do you know what I long for more than anything else? A clean, unhurried
+breakfast with spotless napery and shining silver and porridge and
+kippers. I don't think these long, lazy after-breakfast hours at Oxford
+were wasted. They are a memory and a hope out here. The shrapnel is
+getting nearer and more frequent. We are all hoping it will kill some
+chickens in the courtyard. The laws against looting are so strict.</p>
+
+<p>What an excellent musical-box, playing quite a good imitation of
+<i>Cavalleria Rusticana</i>. I guess we shall have to move soon. Too many
+shells. Too dark to write any more&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>After all, quite the most important things out here are a fine meal and
+a good bath. If you consider the vast area of the war the facts that we
+have lost two guns or advanced five miles are of very little importance.
+War, making one realise the hopeless insignificance of the individual,
+creates in one such an immense regard for <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 174]</span><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>self, that so long as one
+does well it matters little if four officers have been killed
+reconnoitring or some wounded have had to be left under an abandoned gun
+all night. I started with an immense interest in tactics. This has
+nearly all left me and I remain a more or less efficient
+despatch-carrying animal&mdash;a part of a machine realising the hopeless,
+enormous size of the machine.</p>
+
+<p>The infantry officer after two months of modern war is a curious
+phenomenon.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> He is probably one of three survivors of an original
+twenty-eight. He is not frightened of being killed; he has forgotten to
+think about it. But there is a sort of reflex fright. He becomes either
+cautious and liable to sudden panics, or very rash indeed, or absolutely
+mechanical in his actions. The first state means the approach of a
+nervous breakdown, the second a near death. There are very few, indeed,
+who retain a nervous balance and a calm judgment. And all have a harsh
+frightened voice. If you came suddenly out here, you would think they
+were all mortally afraid. But it is only giving orders for hours
+together under a heavy fire.</p>
+
+<p>Battle noises are terrific. At the present moment a howitzer is going
+strong behind <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 175]</span><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>this, and the concussion is tremendous. The noise is like
+dropping a traction-engine on a huge tin tray. A shell passing away from
+you over your head is like the loud crackling of a newspaper close to
+your ear. It makes a sort of deep reverberating crackle in the air,
+gradually lessening, until there is a dull boom, and a mile or so away
+you see a thick little cloud of white smoke in the air or a pear-shaped
+cloud of grey-black smoke on the ground. Coming towards you a shell
+makes a cutting, swishing note, gradually getting higher and higher,
+louder and louder. There is a longer note one instant and then it
+ceases. Shrapnel bursting close to you has the worst sound.</p>
+
+<p>It is almost funny in a village that is being shelled. Things simply
+disappear. You are standing in an archway a little back from the road&mdash;a
+shriek of shrapnel. The windows are broken and the tiles rush clattering
+into the street, while little bullets and bits of shell jump like
+red-hot devils from side to side of the street, ricochetting until their
+force is spent. Or a deeper bang, a crash, and a whole house tumbles
+down.</p>
+
+<p><i>3/4-hour later.</i>&mdash;Curious life this. Just after I had finished the last
+sentence, I was called out to take a message to a battery telling them
+to shell a certain vil<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 176]</span><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>lage. Here am I wandering out, taking orders for
+the complete destruction of a village and probably for the death of a
+couple of hundred men<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> without a thought, except that the roads are
+very greasy and that lunch time is near.</p>
+
+<p>Again, yesterday, I put our Heavies in action, and in a quarter of an
+hour a fine old church, with what appeared from the distance a
+magnificent tower, was nothing but a grotesque heap of ruins. The
+Germans were loopholing it for defence.</p>
+
+<p>Oh the waste, the utter damnable waste of everything out here&mdash;men,
+horses, buildings, cars, everything. Those who talk about war being a
+salutary discipline are those who remain at home. In a modern war there
+is little room for picturesque gallantry or picture-book heroism. We are
+all either animals or machines, with little gained except our emotions
+dulled and brutalised and nightmare flashes of scenes that cannot be
+written about because they are unbelievable. I wonder what difference
+you will find in us when we come home&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Do you know what a night scare is? In our last H.Q. we were all dining
+when suddenly there was a terrific outburst of rifle-fire from our
+lines. We went out into the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 177]</span><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a> road that passes the farm and stood there
+in the pitch darkness, wondering. The fire increased in intensity until
+every soldier within five miles seemed to be revelling in a lunatic
+succession of "mad minutes." Was it a heavy attack on our lines? Soon
+pom-poms joined in sharp, heavy taps&mdash;and machine guns. The lines to the
+battalions were at the moment working feebly, and what the operators
+could get through was scarcely intelligible. Ammunition limbers were
+hurried up, and I stood ready to dart anywhere. For twenty minutes the
+rifle-fire seemed to grow wilder and wilder. At last stretcher-bearers
+came in with a few wounded and reported that we seemed to be holding our
+own. Satisfactory so far. Then there were great flashes of shrapnel over
+our lines; that comforted us, for if your troops are advancing you don't
+fire shrapnel over the enemy's lines. You never know how soon they may
+be yours. The firing soon died down until we heard nothing but little
+desultory bursts. Finally an orderly came&mdash;the Germans had
+half-heartedly charged our trenches but had been driven off with loss.
+We returned to the farm and found that in the few minutes we had been
+outside everything had been packed and half-frightened men were standing
+about for orders.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 178]</span><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a></p>
+
+<p>The explanation of it all came later and was simple enough. The French,
+without letting us know, had attacked the Germans on our right, and the
+Germans to keep us engaged had made a feint attack upon us. So we went
+back to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>In modern war the infantryman hasn't much of a chance. Strategy nowadays
+consists in arranging for the mutual slaughter of infantry by the
+opposing guns, each general trusting that his guns will do the greater
+slaughter. And half gunnery is luck. The day before yesterday we had a
+little afternoon shoot at where we thought the German trenches might be.
+The Germans unaccountably retreated, and yesterday when we advanced we
+found the trenches crammed full of dead. By a combination of intelligent
+anticipation and good luck we had hit them exactly&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>From these letters you will be able to gather what mood we were in and
+something of what the brigade despatch rider was doing. After the first
+day the Germans ceased shrapnelling the fields round the farm and left
+us nearly in peace. There I met Major Ballard, commanding the 15th
+Artillery Brigade, one of the finest officers of my acquaintance, and
+Captain Frost, the sole remaining officer of the Cheshires. He was
+charming to me; I was particularly <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 179]</span><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>grateful for the loan of a razor,
+for my own had disappeared and there were no despatch riders handy from
+whom I could borrow.</p>
+
+<p>Talking of the Cheshires reminds me of a story illustrating the troubles
+of a brigadier. The general was dining calmly one night after having
+arranged an attack. All orders had been sent out. Everything was
+complete and ready. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and in walked
+Captain M&mdash;&mdash;, who reported his arrival with 200 reinforcements for the
+Cheshires, a pleasant but irritating addition. The situation was further
+complicated by the general's discovery that M&mdash;&mdash; was senior to the
+officer then in command of the Cheshires. Poor M&mdash;&mdash; was not left long
+in command. A fortnight later the Germans broke through and over the
+Cheshires, and M&mdash;&mdash; died where a commanding officer should.</p>
+
+<p>From 1910 Farm I had one good ride to the battalions, through Festubert
+and along to the Cuinchy bridge. For me it was interesting because it
+was one of the few times I had ridden just behind our trenches, which at
+the moment were just north of the road and were occupied by the
+Bedfords.</p>
+
+<p>In a day or two we returned to Festubert, and Cadell gave me a
+shake-down on a mattress in his billet&mdash;gloriously comfortable. The room
+was a little draughty because the <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 180]</span><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>fuse of a shrapnel had gone right
+through the door and the fireplace opposite. Except for a peppering on
+the walls and some broken glass the house was not damaged; we almost
+laughed at the father and mother and daughter who, returning while we
+were there, wept because their home had been touched.</p>
+
+<p>Orders came to attack. A beautiful plan was drawn up by which the
+battalions of the brigade were to finish their victorious career in the
+square of La Bass&eacute;e.</p>
+
+<p>In connection with this attack I was sent with a message for the Devons.
+It was the blackest of black nights and I was riding without a light.
+Twice I ran into the ditch, and finally I piled up myself and my bicycle
+on a heap of stones lying by the side of the road. I did not damage my
+bicycle. That was enough. I left it and walked.</p>
+
+<p>When I got to Cuinchy bridge I found that the Devon headquarters had
+shifted. Beyond that the sentry knew nothing. Luckily I met a Devon
+officer who was bringing up ammunition. We searched the surrounding
+cottages for men with knowledge, and at last discovered that the Devons
+had moved farther along the canal in the direction of La Bass&eacute;e. So we
+set out along the tow-path, past a house that was burning fiercely
+enough to make us conspicuous.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 181]</span><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a></p>
+
+<p>We felt our way about a quarter of a mile and stopped, because we were
+getting near the Germans. Indeed we could hear the rumble of their
+transport crossing the La Bass&eacute;e bridge. We turned back, and a few yards
+nearer home some one coughed high up the bank on our right. We found the
+cough to be a sentry, and behind the sentry were the Devons.</p>
+
+<p>The attack, as you know, was held up on the line
+Cuinchy-Givenchy-Violaines; we advanced our headquarters to a house just
+opposite the inn by which the road to Givenchy turns off. It was not
+very safe, but the only shell that burst anywhere near the house itself
+did nothing but wound a little girl in the leg.</p>
+
+<p>On the previous day I had ridden to Violaines at dawn to draw a plan of
+the Cheshires' trenches for the general. I strolled out by the sugar
+factory, and had a good look at the red houses of La Bass&eacute;e. Half an
+hour later a patrol went out to explore the sugar factory. They did not
+return. It seems that the factory was full of machine-guns. I had not
+been fired upon, because the Germans did not wish to give their position
+away sooner than was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two later I had the happiness of avenging my potential death.
+First I <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 182]</span><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>took orders to a battery of 6-inch howitzers at the Rue de
+Marais to knock the factory to pieces, then I carried an observing
+officer to some haystacks by Violaines, from which he could get a good
+view of the factory. Finally I watched with supreme satisfaction the
+demolition of the factory, and with regretful joy the slaughter of the
+few Germans who, escaping, scuttled for shelter in some trenches just
+behind and on either side of the factory.</p>
+
+<p>I left the 15th Brigade with regret, and the regret I felt would have
+been deeper if I had known what was going to happen to the brigade. I
+was given interesting work and made comfortable. No despatch rider could
+wish for more.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after I had returned from the 15th Brigade, the Germans
+attacked and broke through. They had been heavily reinforced and our
+tentative offensive had been replaced by a stern and anxious defensive.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Signal Office was established in the booking-office of Beuvry
+Station. The little narrow room was packed full of operators and vibrant
+with buzz and click. The Signal Clerk sat at a table in a tiny room just
+off the booking-office. Orderlies would rush in with messages, and the
+Clerk would instantly decide whether to send them over the wire, by
+push-cyclist, or by despatch <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 183]</span><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>rider. Again, he dealt with all messages
+that came in over the wire. Copies of these messages were filed. This
+was our tape; from them we learned the news. We were not supposed to
+read them, but, as we often found that they contained information which
+was invaluable to despatch riders, we always looked through them and
+each passed on what he had found to the others. The Signal Clerk might
+not know where a certain unit was at a given moment. We knew, because we
+had put together information that we had gathered in the course of our
+rides and information which&mdash;though the Clerk might think it
+unimportant&mdash;supplemented or completed or verified what we had already
+obtained.</p>
+
+<p>So the history of this partially successful attack was known to us.
+Every few minutes one of us went into the Signal Office and read the
+messages. When the order came for us to pack up, we had already made our
+preparations, for Divisional Headquarters, the brain controlling the
+actions of seventeen thousand men, must never be left in a position of
+danger. And wounded were pouring into the Field Ambulances.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy had made a violent attack, preluded by heavy shelling, on the
+left of the 15th, and what I think was a holding attack on the right.
+Violaines had been <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 184]</span><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>stormed, and the Cheshires had been driven, still
+grimly fighting, to beyond the Rue de Marais. The Norfolks on their
+right and the K.O.S.B.'s on their left had been compelled to draw back
+their line with heavy loss, for their flanks had been uncovered by the
+retreat of the Cheshires.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans stopped a moment to consolidate their gains. This gave us
+time to throw a couple of battalions against them. After desperate
+fighting Rue de Marais was retaken and some sort of line established.
+What was left of the Cheshires gradually rallied in Festubert.</p>
+
+<p>This German success, together with a later success against the 3rd
+Division, that resulted in our evacuation of Neuve Chapelle, compelled
+us to withdraw and readjust our line. This second line was not so
+defensible as the first. Until we were relieved the Germans battered at
+it with gunnery all day and attacks all night. How we managed to hold it
+is utterly beyond my understanding. The men were dog-tired. Few of the
+old officers were left, and they were "done to the world." Never did the
+Fighting Fifth more deserve the name. It fought dully and instinctively,
+like a boxer who, after receiving heavy punishment, just manages to keep
+himself from being knocked out until the call of time.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 185]</span><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a></p>
+
+<p>Yet, when they had dragged themselves wearily and blindly out of the
+trenches, the fighting men of the Fighting Fifth were given but a day's
+rest or two before the 15th and two battalions of the 13th were sent to
+Hooge, and the remainder to hold sectors of the line farther south. Can
+you wonder that we despatch riders, in comparative safety behind the
+line, did all we could to help the most glorious and amazing infantry
+that the world has ever seen?<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> And when you praise the deeds of Ypres
+of the First Corps, who had experienced no La Bass&eacute;e, spare a word for
+the men of the Fighting Fifth who thought they could fight no more and
+yet fought.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after I had returned from the 15th Brigade I was sent out to
+the 14th. I found them at the Estaminet de l'Epinette on the
+B&eacute;thune-Richebourg road. Headquarters had been compelled to shift,
+hastily enough, from the Estaminet de La Bombe on the La Bass&eacute;e-Estaires
+road. The estaminet had been shelled to destruction half an hour after
+the Brigade had moved. The Estaminet de l'Epinette was filthy and small.
+I slept in a stinking barn, half-full <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 186]</span><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>of dirty straw, and rose with the
+sun for the discomfort of it.</p>
+
+<p>Opposite the estaminet a road goes to Festubert. At the corner there is
+a cluster of dishevelled houses. I sat at the door and wrote letters,
+and looked for what might come to pass. In the early dawn the poplars
+alongside the highway were grey and dull. There was mist on the road;
+the leaves that lay thick were black. Then as the sun rose higher the
+poplars began to glisten and the mist rolled away, and the leaves were
+red and brown.</p>
+
+<p>An old woman came up the road and prayed the sentry to let her pass. He
+could not understand her and called to me. She told me that her family
+were in the house at the corner fifty yards distant. I replied that she
+could not go to them&mdash;that they, if they were content not to return,
+might come to her. But the family would not leave their chickens, and
+cows, and corn. So the old woman, who was tired, sank down by the
+wayside and wept. This sorrow was no sorrow to the sorrow of the war. I
+left the old woman, the sentry, and the family, and went into a fine
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>At this time there was much talk about spies. Our wires were often cut
+mysteriously. A sergeant had been set upon in a lane. The enemy were
+finding our guns with un<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 187]</span><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>canny accuracy. All our movements seemed to be
+anticipated by the enemy. Taking for granted the extraordinary
+efficiency of the German Intelligence Corps, we were particularly
+nervous about spies when the Division was worn out, when things were not
+going well.</p>
+
+<p>At the Estaminet de l'Epinette I heard a certain story, and hearing it
+set about to make a fool of myself. This is the story&mdash;I have never
+heard it substantiated, and give it as an illustration and not as fact.</p>
+
+<p>There was once an artillery brigade billeted in a house two miles or so
+behind the lines. All the inhabitants of the house had fled, for the
+village had been heavily bombarded. Only a girl had had the courage to
+remain and do hostess to the English. She was so fresh and so charming,
+so clever in her cookery, and so modest in her demeanour that all the
+men of the brigade headquarters fell madly in love with her. They even
+quarrelled. Now this brigade was suffering much from espionage. The guns
+could not be moved without the Germans knowing their new position. No
+transport or ammunition limbers were safe from the enemy's guns. The
+brigade grew mightily indignant. The girl was told by her numerous
+sweethearts what was the matter. She was angry and sympathetic, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 188]</span><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>and
+swore that through her the spy should be discovered. She swore the
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>One night a certain lewd fellow of the baser sort pursued the girl with
+importunate pleadings. She confessed that she liked him, but not in that
+way. He left her and stood sullenly by the door. The girl took a pail
+and went down into the cellar to fetch up a little coal, telling the man
+with gentle mockery not to be so foolish. This angered him, and in a
+minute he had rushed after her into the cellar, snorting with
+disappointed passion. Of course he slipped on the stairs and fell with a
+crash. The girl screamed. The fellow, his knee bruised, tried to feel
+his way to the bottom of the stairs and touched a wire. Quickly running
+his hand along the wire he came to a telephone. The girl rushed to him,
+and, clasping his knees, offered him anything he might wish, if only he
+would say nothing. I think he must have hesitated for a moment, but he
+did not hesitate long. The girl was shot.</p>
+
+<p>Full of this suspiciously melodramatic story I caught sight of a
+mysterious document fastened by nails to the house opposite the inn. It
+was covered with coloured signs which, whatever they were, certainly did
+not form letters or make sense in any way. I examined the document
+closely. One sign <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 189]</span><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>looked like an aeroplane, another like a house, a
+third like the rough drawing of a wood. I took it to a certain officer,
+who agreed with me that it appeared suspicious.</p>
+
+<p>We carried it to the staff-captain, who pointed out very forcibly that
+it had been raining lately, that colour ran, that the signs left formed
+portions of letters. I demanded the owner of the house upon which the
+document had been posted. She was frightened and almost unintelligible,
+but supplied the missing fragments. The document was a crude election
+appeal. Being interpreted it read something like this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="center">SUPPORT LEF&Egrave;VRE. HE IS NOT A LIAR LIKE DUBOIS.</div>
+
+<p>Talking of spies, here is another story. It is true.</p>
+
+<p>Certain wires were always being cut. At length a patrol was organised.
+While the operator was talking there was a little click and no further
+acknowledgment from the other end. The patrol started out and caught the
+man in the act of cutting a second wire. He said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He was brought before the Mayor. Evidence was briefly given of his
+guilt. He made no protest. It was stated that he had <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 190]</span><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>been born in the
+village. The Mayor turned to the man and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You are a traitor. It is clear. Have you anything to say?"</p>
+
+<p>The man stood white and straight. Then he bowed his head and made
+answer&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Priez pour moi."</p>
+
+<p>That was no defence. So they led him away.</p>
+
+<p>The morning after I arrived at the 14th the Germans concentrated their
+fire on a large turnip-field and exhumed multitudinous turnips. No
+further damage was done, but the field was unhealthily near the
+Estaminet de l'Epinette. In the afternoon we moved our headquarters back
+a mile or so to a commodious and moderately clean farm with a
+forgettable name.</p>
+
+<p>That evening two prisoners were brought in. They owned to eighteen, but
+did not look more than sixteen. The guard treated them with kindly
+contempt. We all sat round a makeshift table in the loft where we slept
+and told each other stories of fighting and love and fear, while the
+boys, squatting a little distance away, listened and looked at us in
+wonder. I came in from a ride about one in the morning and found those
+of the guard who were off duty and the two German boys sleeping side by
+side. Literally it was criminal negligence&mdash;some one ought to have <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 191]</span><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>been
+awake&mdash;but, when I saw one of the boys was clasping tightly a packet of
+woodbines, I called it something else and went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two later I was relieved. On the following afternoon I was sent
+to Estaires to bring back some details about the Lahore Division which
+had just arrived on the line. I had, of course, seen Spahis and Turcos
+and Senegalese, but when riding through Lestrem I saw these Indian
+troops of ours the obvious thoughts tumbled over one another.</p>
+
+<p>We despatch riders when first we met the Indians wondered how they would
+fight, how they would stand shell-fire and the climate&mdash;but chiefly we
+were filled with a sort of mental helplessness, riding among people when
+we could not even vaguely guess at what they were thinking. We could get
+no deeper than their appearance, dignified and clean and well-behaved.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days I was back again at the 14th with Huggie. At dusk the
+General went out in his car to a certain village about three miles
+distant. Huggie went with him. An hour or so, and I was sent after him
+with a despatch. The road was almost unrideable with the worst sort of
+grease, the night was pitch-black and I was allowed no light. I
+slithered along at about six miles an hour, sticking out my legs for a
+permanent scaffold<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 192]</span><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>ing. Many troops were lying down at the side of the
+road. An officer in a strained voice just warned me in time for me to
+avoid a deep shell-hole by inches. I delivered my despatch to the
+General. Outside the house I found two or three officers I knew. Two of
+them were young captains in command of battalions. Then I learned how
+hard put to it the Division was, and what the result is of nervous
+strain.</p>
+
+<p>They had been fighting and fighting and fighting until their nerves were
+nothing but a jangling torture. And a counter-attack on Neuve Chapelle
+was being organised. Huggie told me afterwards that when the car had
+come along the road, all the men had jumped like startled animals and a
+few had turned to take cover. Why, if a child had met one of these men
+she would have taken him by the hand instinctively and told him not to
+be frightened, and defended him against anything that came. Yet it is
+said there are still those at home who will not stir to help. I do not
+see how this can possibly be true. It could not be true.</p>
+
+<p>First we talked about the counter-attack, and which battalion would
+lead; then with a little manipulation we began to discuss musical comedy
+and the beauty of certain ladies. Again the talk would wander back to
+which battalion would lead.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 193]</span><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a></p>
+
+<p>I returned perilously with a despatch and left Huggie, to spend a
+disturbed night and experience those curious sensations which are caused
+by a shell bursting just across the road from the house.</p>
+
+<p>The proposed attack was given up. If it had been carried out, those men
+would have fought as finely as they could. I do not know whether my
+admiration for the infantry or my hatred of war is the greater. I can
+express neither.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day the Brigadier moved to a farm farther north. It was
+the job of Huggie and myself to keep up communication between this farm
+and the brigade headquarters at the farm with the forgettable name. To
+ride four miles or so along country lanes from one farm to another does
+not sound particularly strenuous. It was. In the first place, the
+neighbourhood of the advanced farm was not healthy. The front gate was
+marked down by a sniper who fired not infrequently but a little high.
+Between the back gate and the main road was impassable mud. Again, the
+farm was only three-quarters of a mile behind our trenches, and "overs"
+went zipping through the farm buildings at all sorts of unexpected
+angles. There were German aeroplanes about, so we covered our stationary
+motor-cycles with straw.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 194]</span><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a></p>
+
+<p>Starting from brigade headquarters the despatch rider in half a mile was
+forced to pass the transport of a Field Ambulance. The men seemed to
+take a perverted delight in wandering aimlessly and deafly across the
+road, and in leaving anything on the road which could conceivably
+obstruct or annoy a motor-cyclist. Then came two and a half miles of
+winding country lanes. They were covered with grease. Every corner was
+blind. A particularly sharp turn to the right and the despatch rider
+rode a couple of hundred yards in front of a battery in action that the
+Germans were trying to find. A "hairpin" corner round a house followed.
+This he would take with remarkable skill and alacrity, because at this
+corner he was always sniped. The German's rifle was trained a trifle
+high. Coming into the final straight the despatch rider or one despatch
+rider rode for all he was worth. It was unpleasant to find new
+shell-holes just off the road each time you passed, or, as you came into
+the straight, to hear the shriek of shrapnel between you and the farm.</p>
+
+<p>Huggie once arrived at the house of the "hairpin" bend simultaneously
+with a shell. The shell hit the house, the house did not hit Huggie, and
+the sniper forgot to snipe. So every one was pleased.</p>
+
+<p>On my last journey I passed a bunch of <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 195]</span><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>wounded Sikhs. They were
+clinging to all their kit. One man was wounded in both his feet. He was
+being carried by two of his fellows. In his hands he clutched his boots.</p>
+
+<p>The men did not know where to go or what to do. I could not make them
+understand, but I tried by gestures to show them where the ambulance
+was.</p>
+
+<p>I saw two others&mdash;they were slightly wounded&mdash;talking fiercely together.
+At last they grasped their rifles firmly, and swinging round, limped
+back towards the line.</p>
+
+<p>Huggie did most of the work that day, because during the greater part of
+the afternoon I was kept back at brigade headquarters.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I went out in the car to fetch the general. The car,
+which was old but stout, had been left behind by the Germans. The driver
+of it was a reservist who had been taken from his battalion. Day and
+night he tended and coaxed that car. He tied it together when it fell to
+pieces. At all times and in all places he drove that car, for he had no
+wish at all to return to the trenches.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day Huggie and I were relieved. When we returned to our
+good old musty quarters at Beuvry men talked of <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 196]</span><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>a move. There were
+rumours of hard fighting in Ypres. Soon the Lahore Division came down
+towards our line and began to take over from us. The 14th Brigade was
+left to strengthen them. The 15th and 13th began to move north.</p>
+
+<p>Early on the morning of October 29 we started, riding first along the
+canal by B&eacute;thune. As for Festubert, Givenchy, Violaines, Rue de Marais,
+Quinque Rue, and La Bass&eacute;e, we never want to see them again.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 197]</span><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/map6.jpg"><img src="./images/map6-tb.jpg" alt="YPRES to LA BASS&Eacute;E" title="YPRES to LA BASS&Eacute;E" /></a></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 198]</span><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BEGINNING OF WINTER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Before we came, Givenchy had been a little forgettable village upon a
+hill, Violaines a pleasant afternoon's walk for the working men in La
+Bass&eacute;e, Festubert a gathering-place for the people who lived in the
+filthy farms around. We left Givenchy a jumble of shuttered houses and
+barricaded cellars. A few Germans were encamped upon the site of
+Violaines. The great clock of Festubert rusted quickly against a tavern
+wall. We hated La Bass&eacute;e, because against La Bass&eacute;e the Division had
+been broken. There are some square miles of earth that, like criminals,
+should not live.</p>
+
+<p>Our orders were to reach Caestre not later than the Signal Company.
+Caestre is on the Cassel-Bailleul road, three miles north-east of
+Hazebrouck. These unattached rides across country are the most joyous
+things in the world for a despatch <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 199]</span><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>rider. There is never any need to
+hurry. You can take any road you will. You may choose your tavern for
+lunch with expert care. And when new ground is covered and new troops
+are seen, we capture sometimes those sharp delightful moments of
+thirsting interest that made the Retreat into an epic and the Advance a
+triumphant ballad.</p>
+
+<p>N'Soon and myself left together. We skidded along the tow-path, passed
+the ever-cheerful cyclists, and, turning due north, ran into St Venant.
+The grease made us despatch riders look as if we were beginning to
+learn. I rode gently but surely down the side of the road into the
+gutter time after time. Pulling ourselves together, we managed to slide
+past some Indian transport without being kicked by the mules, who,
+whenever they smelt petrol, developed a strong offensive. Then we came
+upon a big gun, discreetly covered by tarpaulins. It was drawn by a
+monster traction-engine, and sad-faced men walked beside it. The
+steering of the traction-engine was a trifle loose, so N'Soon and I drew
+off into a field to let this solemn procession pass. One of the commands
+in the unpublished "Book of the Despatch Rider" is this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>When you halt by the roadside to let guns pass or when you
+leave your motor-cycle <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 200]</span><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>unattended, first place it in a
+position of certain safety where it cannot possibly be
+knocked over, and then move it another fifty yards from the
+road. It is impossible for a gunner to see something by the
+roadside and not drive over it. Moreover, lorries when they
+skid, skid furiously.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>Four miles short of Hazebrouck we caught up the rest. Proceeding in
+single file along the road, we endeavoured not to laugh, for&mdash;as one
+despatch rider said&mdash;it makes all the difference on grease which side of
+your mouth you put your pipe in. We reached Hazebrouck at midday.
+Spreading out&mdash;the man&oelig;uvre had become a fine art&mdash;we searched the
+town. The "Chapeau Rouge" was well reported on, and there we lunched.</p>
+
+<p>All those tourists who will deluge Flanders after the war should go to
+the "Chapeau Rouge" in Hazebrouck. There we had lentil soup and stewed
+kidneys, and roast veal with potatoes and leeks, fruit, cheese, and good
+red wine. So little was the charge that one of us offered to pay it all.
+There are other more fashionable hotels in Hazebrouck, but, trust the
+word of a despatch rider, the "Chapeau Rouge" beats them all.</p>
+
+<p>Very content we rode on to Caestre, arriving there ten minutes before
+the advance-party of the Signal Company. Divi<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 201]</span><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>sional Headquarters were
+established at the House of the Spy. The owner of the house had been
+well treated by the Germans when they had passed through a month before.
+Upon his door had been written this damning legend&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="center">HIER SIND GUETIGE LEUTE<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></div>
+
+<p>and, when on the departure of the Germans the house had been searched by
+an indignant populace, German newspapers had been discovered in his
+bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>It is the custom of the Germans to spare certain houses in every village
+by chalking up some laudatory notice. We despatch riders had a theory
+that the inhabitants of these marked houses, far from being spies, were
+those against whom the Germans had some particular grievance. Imagine
+the wretched family doing everything in its power to avoid the effusive
+affection of the Teuton, breaking all its own crockery, and stealing all
+its own silver, defiling its beds and tearing its clothing. For the man
+whose goods have been spared by the German becomes an outcast. He lives
+in a state worse than death. He is hounded from his property, and driven
+across France with a character attached to him, like a <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 202]</span><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>kettle to a
+cat's tail. Genuine spies, on the other hand&mdash;so we thought&mdash;were worse
+treated than any and secretly recompensed. Such a man became a hero. All
+his neighbours brought their little offerings.</p>
+
+<p>The House of the Spy had a fine garden, hot and buzzing in the
+languorous heat. We bathed ourselves in it. And the sanitary
+arrangements were good.</p>
+
+<p>Grimers arrived lunchless an hour later. He had been promoted to drive
+the captured car. We took him to the tavern where beauty was allied with
+fine cooking. There he ate many omelettes.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening he and I suffered a great disappointment. We wandered
+into another tavern and were about to ask for our usual "Grenadine" when
+we saw behind the bar two bottles of Worthington. For a moment we were
+too stupefied to speak. Then, pulling ourselves together, we stammered
+out an order for beer, but the girl only smiled. They were empty
+bottles, souvenirs left by some rascally A.S.C. for the eternal
+temptation of all who might pass through. The girl in her sympathy
+comforted us with songs, one of which, "Les Serments," I translated for
+the benefit of Grimers, who knew no French. We sang cheerfully in French
+and English until it was time to return to our billet.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 203]</span><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a></p>
+
+<p>In the morning a German aeroplane passed over at a great height. All the
+youngsters in the village tumbled over each other for shelter,
+shouting&mdash;Caput! caput!<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p>Later in the day we advanced to Bailleul, where we learnt that the 1st
+Corps was fighting furiously to the north. The square was full of
+motor-buses and staff-officers. They were the first of our own
+motor-buses we had seen out in Flanders. They cheered us greatly, and
+after some drinks we sat in one and tried to learn from the map
+something of the new country in which we were to ride. We rejoiced that
+we had come once again upon a Belgian sheet, because the old French map
+we had used, however admirable it might have been for brigadiers and
+suchlike people, was extremely unsuited to a despatch rider's work.</p>
+
+<p>Infantry were pouring through, the stern remnants of fine battalions.
+Ever since the night after Le Cateau infantry in column of route have
+fascinated us, for a regiment on the march bares its character to the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>First there were our brigades marching up to Mons, stalwart and
+cheering. After Le Cateau there were practically no battalions, just a
+crowd of men and transport pouring <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 204]</span><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>along the road to Paris. I watched
+the column pass for an hour, and in it there was no organised unit
+larger than a platoon, and only one platoon. How it happened I do not
+know, but, when we turned on the Germans, battalions, brigades,
+divisions, corps had been remade. The battalions were pitifully small.
+Many a time we who were watching said to one another: Surely that's not
+the end of the K.O.Y.L.I., or the Bedfords, or whatever regiment it
+might be!</p>
+
+<p>A battalion going into action has some men singing, some smiling vaguely
+to themselves, some looking raptly straight ahead, and some talking
+quickly as if they must never stop.</p>
+
+<p>A battalion that has come many miles is nearly silent. The strong men
+stride tirelessly without a word. Little weak men, marching on their
+nerves, hobble restlessly along. The men with bad feet limp and curse,
+wilting under the burden of their kit, and behind all come those who
+have fallen out by the way&mdash;men dragging themselves along behind a
+waggon, white-faced men with uneasy smiles on top of the waggons. A
+little farther back those who are trying to catch up: these are tragic
+figures, breaking into breathless little runs, but with a fine wavering
+attempt at striding out, as though they might be connecting files, when
+they <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 205]</span><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>march through a town or past an officer of high rank.</p>
+
+<p>A battalion that has just come out of action I cannot describe to you in
+these letters, but let me tell you now about Princess Pat's. I ran into
+them just as they were coming into Bailleul for the first time and were
+hearing the sound of the guns. They were the finest lot of men I have
+ever seen on the march. Gusts of great laughter were running through
+them. In the eyes of one or two were tears. And I told those civilians I
+passed that the Canadians, the fiercest of all soldiers, were come.
+Bailleul looked on them with more fright than admiration. The women
+whispered fearfully to each other&mdash;Les Canadiens, les Canadiens!...</p>
+
+<p>We despatch riders were given a large room in the house where the
+Divisional Staff was billeted. It had tables, chairs, a fireplace and
+gas that actually lit; so we were more comfortable than ever we had been
+before&mdash;that is, all except N'Soon, who had by this time discovered that
+continual riding on bad roads is apt to produce a fundamental soreness.
+N'Soon hung on nobly, but was at last sent away with blood-poisoning.
+Never getting home, he spent many weary months in peculiar convalescent
+camps, and did not join up again until the <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 206]</span><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>end of January.
+Moral&mdash;before going sick or getting wounded become an officer and a
+gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>The day after we arrived I was once more back in Belgium with a message
+to the C.R.A.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> at Neuve Eglise. I had last been in Belgium on August
+23, the day we left Dour.</p>
+
+<p>The general might have been posing for a war artist. He was seated at a
+table in the middle of a field, his staff-captain with him. The ground
+sloped away to a wooded valley in which two or three batteries,
+carefully concealed, were blazing away. To the north shrapnel was
+bursting over Kemmel. In front the Messines ridge was almost hidden with
+the smoke of our shells. I felt that each point of interest ought to
+have been labelled in Mr Frederic Villiers' handwriting&mdash;"<i>German
+shrapnel bursting over Kemmel&mdash;our guns&mdash;this is a dead horse</i>."</p>
+
+<p>I first saw Ypres on the 6th November. I was sent off with a bundle of
+routine matter to the 1st Corps, then at Brielen, a couple of miles N.W.
+of Ypres. It was a nightmare ride. The road was <i>pav&eacute;</i> in the
+centre&mdash;villainous <i>pav&eacute;</i>. At the side of it were glutinous morasses
+about six feet in width, and sixteen inches deep. I started <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 207]</span><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>off with
+two 2nd Corps motor-cyclists. There was an almost continuous line of
+transport on the road&mdash;motor-lorries that did not dare deviate an inch
+from the centre of the road for fear of slipping into the mire, motor
+ambulances, every kind of transport, and some infantry battalions. After
+following a column of motor-lorries a couple of miles&mdash;we stuck twice in
+trying to get past the rearmost lorry&mdash;we tried the road by Dranoutre
+and Locre. But these country lanes were worse of surface <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'that'">than</ins> the main
+road&mdash;greasy <i>pav&eacute;</i> is better that greasy rocks&mdash;and they were filled
+with odd detachments of French artillery. The two 2nd Corps
+motor-cyclists turned back. I crawled on at the risk of smashing my
+motor-cycle and myself, now skidding perilously between waggons, now
+clogging up, now taking to the fields, now driving frightened
+pedestrians off what the Belgians alone would call a footpath. I skidded
+into a subaltern, and each of us turned to curse, when&mdash;it was Gibson, a
+junior "Greats" don at Balliol, and the finest of fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Dickebusch French artillery were in action on the road. The
+houses just outside Ypres had been pelted with shrapnel but not
+destroyed. Just by the station, which had not then been badly knocked
+about, I learnt where to go. Ypres was the <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 208]</span><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>first half-evacuated town I
+had entered. It was like motor-cycling into a village from Oxford very
+early on a Sunday morning. Half an hour later I saw the towers of the
+city rising above a bank of mist which had begun to settle on the
+ground: then out rose great clouds of black smoke.</p>
+
+<p>I came back by Poperinghe to avoid the grease and crowding of the direct
+road, and there being no hurry I stopped at an inn for a beefsteak. The
+landlord's daughter talked of the many difficulties before us, and
+doubted of our success. I said, grandiloquently enough, that no victory
+was worth winning unless there were difficulties. At which she smiled
+and remarked, laughing&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There are no roses without thorns."</p>
+
+<p>She asked me how long the war would last. I replied that the good God
+alone knew. She shook her head&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How can the good God look down without a tear on the miseries of his
+people? Are not the flower of the young cut off in the spring of their
+youth?"</p>
+
+<p>Then she pointed to the church across the way, and said humbly&mdash;"On a
+beaucoup pri&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>She was of the true Flemish type, broad and big-breasted, but with a
+slight stoop, thick hips, dark and fresh-coloured, with large black eyes
+set too closely. Like all <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 209]</span><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>the Flemings, she spoke French slowly and
+distinctly, with an accent like the German. She was easy to understand.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped too long at Poperinghe, for it was dark and very misty on the
+road. Beyond Boescheppe&mdash;I was out of my way&mdash;the mist became a fog.
+Once I had to take to the ditch when some cuirassiers galloped out of
+the fog straight at me. It was all four French soldiers could do to get
+my motor-cycle out. Another time I stuck endeavouring to avoid some
+lorries. It is a diabolical joke of the Comic Imps to put fog upon a
+greasy road for the confusion of a despatch rider.</p>
+
+<p>On the next day I was sent out to the 14th Brigade at the Rue de Paradis
+near Laventie. You will remember that the 14th Brigade had been left to
+strengthen the Indian Corps when the 2nd Corps had moved north. I
+arrived at Rue de Paradis just as the Brigade Headquarters were coming
+into the village. So, while everybody else was fixing wires and
+generally making themselves useful, I rushed upstairs and seized a
+mattress and put it into a dark little dressing-room with hot and cold
+water, a mirror and a wardrobe. Then I locked the door. There I slept,
+washed, and dressed in delicious luxury.</p>
+
+<p>The brigade gave another despatch rider <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 210]</span><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>and myself, who were attached,
+very little to do beyond an occasional forty-mile run to D.H.Q. and back
+over dull roads. The signal office was established in a large room on
+the side of the house nearest to the Germans. It was constructed almost
+entirely of glass. Upon this the men commented with a grave fluency. The
+windows rattled with shrapnel bursting 600 yards away. The house was
+jarred through and through by the concussion of a heavy battery firing
+over our heads. The room was like a toy-shop with a lot of small
+children sounding all the musical toys. The vibrators and the buzzers
+were like hoarse toy trumpets.</p>
+
+<p>Our only excitement was the nightly rumour that the General was going to
+move nearer the trenches, that one of us would accompany him&mdash;I knew
+what that meant on greasy misty roads.</p>
+
+<p>After I had left, the Germans by chance or design made better practice.
+A shell burst in the garden and shattered all the windows of the room.
+The Staff took refuge in dug-outs that had been made in case of need.
+Tommy, then attached, took refuge in the cellar. According to his own
+account, when he woke up in the morning he was floating. The house had
+some corners taken off it and all the glass was shattered, but no one
+was hurt.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 211]</span><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a></p>
+
+<p>When I returned to Bailleul, Divisional Headquarters were about to move.</p>
+
+<p>A puncture kept me at Bailleul after the others had gone on to Locre.
+Grimers stood by to help. We lunched well, and buying some supplies
+started off along the Ypres road. By this time our kit had accumulated.
+It is difficult enough to pass lorries on a greasy road at any time.
+With an immense weight on the carrier it is almost impossible. So we
+determined to go by Dranoutre. An unfortunate bump dispersed my blankets
+and my ground-sheet in the mud. Grimers said my language might have
+dried them. Finally, that other despatch rider arrived swathed about
+with some filthy, grey, forlorn indescribables.</p>
+
+<p>We were quartered in a large schoolroom belonging to the Convent. We had
+plenty of space and a table to feed at. Fresh milk and butter we could
+buy from the nuns, while a market-gardener just across the road supplied
+us with a sack of miscellaneous vegetables&mdash;potatoes, carrots, turnips,
+onions, leeks&mdash;for practically nothing. We lived gloriously. There was
+just enough work to make us feel we really were doing something, and not
+enough to make us wish we were on the Staff. Bridge we played every hour
+of the day, and "Pollers," our sergeant, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 212]</span><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>would occasionally try a
+little flutter in Dominoes and Patience.</p>
+
+<p>At Bailleul the Skipper had suggested our learning to manage the
+unmechanical horse. The suggestion became an order. We were bumped round
+unmercifully at first, until many of us were so sore that the touch of a
+motor-cycle saddle on <i>pav&eacute;</i> was like hot-iron to a tender skin. Then we
+were handed over to a friendly sergeant, who believed in more
+gentlemanly methods, and at Locre we had great rides&mdash;though Pollers,
+who was gently unhorsed, is still firmly convinced that wind-mills form
+the finest deterrent to cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>In an unlucky moment two of us had suggested that we should like to
+learn signaller's work, so we fell upon evil days. First we went out for
+cable-drill. Sounds simple? But it is more arduous and dangerous than
+any despatch riding. If you "pay out" too quickly, you get tangled up in
+the wire and go with it nicely over the drum. If you pay out too slowly,
+you strangle the man on the horse behind you. The worst torture in the
+world is paying out at the fast trot over cobbles. First you can't hold
+on, and if you can you can't pay out regularly.</p>
+
+<p>Cable-drill is simply nothing compared to the real laying of cable. We
+did it twice&mdash;once in rain and once in snow. The rainy <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 213]</span><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>day I paid out,
+I was never more miserable in my life than I was after two miles. Only
+hot coffee and singing good songs past cheery Piou-pious brought me
+home. The snowy day I ran with ladders, and, perched on the topmost
+rung, endeavoured to pass the wire round a buxom tree-trunk. Then, when
+it was round, it would always go slack before I could get it tied up
+tightly.</p>
+
+<p>It sounds so easy, laying a wire. But I swear it is the most wearying
+business in the world&mdash;punching holes in the ground with a 16-lb.
+hammer, running up poles that won't go straight, unhooking wire that has
+caught in a branch or in the eaves of a house, taking the strain of a
+cable to prevent man and ladder and wire coming on top of you, when the
+man who pays out has forgotten to pay. Have a thought for the wretched
+fellows who are getting out a wire on a dark and snowy night, troubled
+perhaps by persistent snipers and frequent shells! Shed a tear for the
+miserable linesman sent out to find where the line is broken or
+defective....</p>
+
+<p>When there was no chance of "a run" we would <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'go walks'">go for walks</ins> towards
+Kemmel. At the time the Germans were shelling the hill, but occasionally
+they would break off, and then we would unofficially go up and see what
+had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Now Mont Kemmel is nearly covered <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 214]</span><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>with trees. I have never been in a
+wood under shell fire, and I do not wish to be. Where the Germans had
+heavily shelled Kemmel there were great holes, trees thrown about and
+riven and scarred and crushed&mdash;a terrific immensity of blasphemous
+effort. It was as if some great beast, wounded mortally, had plunged
+into a forest, lashing and biting and tearing in his agony until he
+died.</p>
+
+<p>On one side of the hill was a little crazy cottage which had
+marvellously escaped. Three shells had fallen within ten yards of it.
+Two had not burst, and the other, shrapnel, had exploded in the earth.
+The owner came out, a trifling, wizened old man in the usual Belgian cap
+and blue overalls. We had a talk, using the <i>lingua franca</i> of French,
+English with a Scottish accent, German, and the few words of Dutch I
+could remember.</p>
+
+<p>We dug up for him a large bit of the casing of the shrapnel. He examined
+it fearfully. It was an 11-inch shell, I think, nearly as big as his wee
+grotesque self. Then he made a noise, which we took to be a laugh, and
+told us that he had been very frightened in his little house (h&auml;usling),
+and his cat, an immense white Tom, had been more frightened still. But
+he knew the Germans could not hit him. Thousands and thousands of
+Germans had gone by, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 215]</span><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>and a little after the last German came the
+English. "Les Anglais sont bons."</p>
+
+<p>This he said with an air of finality. It is a full-blooded judgment
+which, though it sounds a trifle exiguous to describe our manifold
+heroic efforts, is a sort of perpetual epithet. The children use it
+confidingly when they run to our men in the caf&eacute;s. The peasants use it
+as a parenthetical verdict whenever they mention our name. The French
+fellows use it, and I have heard a German prisoner say the same.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later those who lived on Kemmel were "evacuated." They were
+rounded up into the Convent yard, men and women and children, with their
+hens and pigs. At first they were angry and sorrowful; but nobody, not
+even the most indignant refugee, could resist our military policemen,
+and in three-quarters of an hour they all trudged off, cheerfully
+enough, along the road to Bailleul.</p>
+
+<p>The wee grotesque man and his immense white cat were not with them.
+Perhaps they still live on Kemmel. Some time I shall go and see....</p>
+
+<p>If we did not play Bridge after our walks, we would look in at the
+theatre or stroll across to dinner and Bridge with Gibson and his
+brother officers of the K.O.S.B., then billeted at Locre.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 216]</span><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a></p>
+
+<p>Not all convents have theatres: this was a special convent. The Signal
+Company slept in the theatre, and of an evening all the kit would be
+moved aside. One of the military policemen could play anything; so we
+danced and sang until the lights went out. The star performer was
+"Spot," the servant of an A.D.C.</p>
+
+<p>"Spot" was a little man with a cheerful squint. He knew everything that
+had ever been recited, and his knowledge of the more ungodly songs was
+immense. He would start off with an imitation of Mr H.B. Irving, and a
+very good imitation it would be&mdash;with soft music. He would leave the
+Signallers thrilled and silent. The lights flashed up, and "Spot" darted
+off on some catchy doggerel of an almost talented obscenity. In private
+life Spot was the best company imaginable. He could not talk for a
+minute without throwing in a bit of a recitation and striking an
+attitude. I have only known him serious on two subjects&mdash;his master and
+Posh. He would pour out with the keenest delight little stories of how
+his master endeavoured to correct his servant's accent. There was a
+famous story of "a n'orse"&mdash;but that is untellable.</p>
+
+<p>Posh may be defined, very roughly, as a useless striving after
+gentlemanly culture. Sometimes a chauffeur or an H.Q. clerk <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 217]</span><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>would
+endeavour to speak very correct English in front of Spot.</p>
+
+<p>"'E was poshy, my dear boy, positively poshy. 'E made me shiver until I
+cried. 'Smith, old man,' I said to 'im, 'you can't do it. You're not
+born to it nor bred to it. Those that try is just demeaning themselves.
+Posh, my dear boy, pure posh.'"</p>
+
+<p>And Spot would give a cruel imitation of the wretched Smith's mincing
+English. The punishment was the more bitter, because all the world knew
+that Spot could speak the King's English as well as anybody if only he
+chose. To the poshy alone was Spot unkind. He was a generous,
+warm-hearted little man, with real wisdom and a fine appreciation of men
+and things.... There were other performers of the usual type, young men
+who sang about the love-light in her eyes, older men with crude songs,
+and a Scotsman with an expressionless face, who mumbled about we could
+never discover what.</p>
+
+<p>The audience was usually strengthened by some half-witted girls that the
+Convent educated, and two angelic nuns. Luckily for them, they only
+understood a slow and grammatical English, and listened to crude songs
+and sentimental songs with the same expression of maternal content.</p>
+
+<p>Our work at Locre was not confined to <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 218]</span><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>riding and cable-laying. The 15th
+Brigade and two battalions of the 13th were fighting crazily at Ypres,
+the 14th had come up to Dranoutre, and the remaining two battalions of
+the 13th were at Neuve Eglise.</p>
+
+<p>I had two more runs to the Ypres district before we left Locre. On the
+first the road was tolerable to Ypres, though near the city I was nearly
+blown off my bicycle by the fire of a concealed battery of 75's. The
+houses at the point where the Rue de Lille enters the Square had been
+blown to bits. The Cloth Hall had barely been touched. In its glorious
+dignity it was beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Ypres, on the Hooge Road, I first experienced the extreme
+neighbourhood of a "J.J." It fell about 90 yards in front of me and 20
+yards off the road. It makes a curiously low droning sound as it falls,
+like the groan of a vastly sorrowful soul in hell,&mdash;so I wrote at the
+time: then there's a gigantic rushing plunk and overwhelming crash as if
+all the houses in the world were falling.</p>
+
+<p>On the way back the road, which had been fairly greasy, became
+practically impassable. I struggled on until my lamp failed (sheer
+carelessness&mdash;I ought to have seen to it before starting), and a gale
+arose which blew me all over the road. So I left my motor-bicycle safely
+behind a cottage, and started tramping back to H.Q. by the light of my
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 219]</span><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>pocket flash-lamp. It was a pitch-black night. I was furiously hungry,
+and stopped at the first inn and gorged coffee with rum, and a large
+sandwich of bread and butter and fat bacon. I had barely started
+again&mdash;it had begun to pour&mdash;when a car came along with a French
+staff-officer inside. I stopped it, saying in hurried and weighty tones
+that I was carrying an important despatch (I had nothing on me, I am
+afraid, but a trifling bunch of receipts), and the rest of the way I
+travelled lapped luxuriously in soft furs.</p>
+
+<p>The second time I rode along a frozen road between white fields. All the
+shells sounded alarmingly near. The noise in Ypres was terrific. At my
+destination I came across some prisoners of the Prussian Guard, fierce
+and enormous men, nearly all with reddish hair, very sullen and rude.</p>
+
+<p>From accounts that have been published of the first battle of Ypres, it
+might be inferred that the British Army knew it was on the point of
+being annihilated. A despatch rider, though of course he does not know
+very much of the real meaning of the military situation, has unequalled
+opportunities for finding out the opinions and spirit of the men. Now
+one of us went to Ypres every day and stopped for a few minutes to
+discuss the state of affairs with other despatch riders and with
+signal-sergeants. Right through <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 220]</span><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>the battle we were confident; in fact
+the idea that the line might be broken never entered our heads. We were
+suffering very heavily. That we knew. Nothing like the shell fire had
+ever been heard before. Nobody realised how serious the situation must
+have been until the accounts were published.</p>
+
+<p>Huggie has a perfect mania for getting frightened; so one day, instead
+of leaving the routine matter that he carried at a place whence it might
+be forwarded at leisure, he rode along the Menin road to the Chateau at
+Hooge, the headquarters of the 15th Brigade. He came back quietly happy,
+telling us that he had had a good time, though the noise had been a
+little overwhelming. We learned afterwards that the enemy had been
+registering very accurately upon the Hooge road.</p>
+
+<p>So the time passed without any excitement until November 23, when first
+we caught hold of a definite rumour that we should be granted leave. We
+existed in restless excitement until the 27th. On that great day we were
+told that we should be allowed a week's leave. We solemnly drew lots,
+and I drew the second batch.</p>
+
+<p>We left the Convent at Locre in a dream, and took up quarters at St Jans
+Cappel, two miles west of Bailleul. We hardly noticed that our billet
+was confined and uncomfortable. Certainly we never realised that we
+should <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 221]</span><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>stop there until the spring. The first batch went off
+hilariously, and with slow pace our day drew nearer and nearer.</p>
+
+<p>You may think it a little needless of me to write about my leave, if you
+do not remember that we despatch riders of the Fifth Division enlisted
+on or about August 6. Few then realised that England had gone to war.
+Nobody realised what sort of a war the war was going to be. When we
+returned in the beginning of December we were Martians. For three months
+we had been vividly soldiers. We had been fighting not in a savage
+country, but in a civilised country burnt by war; and it was because of
+this that the sights of war had struck us so fiercely that when we came
+back our voyage in the good ship <i>Archimedes</i> seemed so many years
+distant. Besides, if I were not to tell you of my leave it would make
+such a gap in my memories that I should scarcely know how to continue my
+tale....</p>
+
+<p>The week dragged more slowly than I can describe. Short-handed, we had
+plenty of work to do, but it was all routine work, which gave us too
+much time to think. There was also a crazy doubt of the others' return.
+They were due back a few hours before we started. If they fell ill or
+missed the boat...! And the fools were motor-cycling to and from
+Boulogne!<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 222]</span><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a></p>
+
+<p>On the great night we prepared some food for them, and having packed our
+kits, tried to sleep. As the hour drew near we listened excitedly for
+the noise of their engines. Several false alarms disturbed us: first, a
+despatch rider from the Third Division, and then another from the Corps.
+At last we heard the purr of three engines together, and then a moment
+later the faint rustle of others in the distance. We recognised the
+engines and jumped up. All the birds came home save one. George had
+never quite recovered from his riding exercises. Slight blood poisoning
+had set in. His leave had been extended at home. So poor "Tommy," who
+had joined us at Beuvry, was compelled to remain behind.</p>
+
+<p>Violent question and answer for an hour, then we piled ourselves on our
+light lorry. Singing like angels we rattled into Bailleul. Just opposite
+Corps Headquarters, our old billet, we found a little crowd waiting.
+None of us could talk much for the excitement. We just wandered about
+greeting friends. I met again that stoutest of warriors, Mr Potter of
+the 15th Artillery Brigade, a friend of Festubert days. Then a battalion
+of French infantry passed through, gallant and cheerful men. At last the
+old dark-green buses rolled up, and about three in the morning we
+pounded off at a good fifteen miles an hour along the Cassel road.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 223]</span><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a></p>
+
+<p>Two of us sat on top, for it was a gorgeous night. We rattled over the
+<i>pav&eacute;</i> alongside multitudinous transport sleeping at the side of the
+road&mdash;through Metern, through Caestre of pleasant memories, and south to
+Hazebrouck. Our driver was a man of mark, a racing motorist in times of
+peace. He left the other buses and swung along rapidly by himself. He
+slowed down for nothing. Just before Hazebrouck we caught up a French
+convoy. I do not quite know what happened. The Frenchmen took cover in
+one ditch. We swayed past, half in the other, at a good round pace.
+Waggons seemed to disappear under our wheels, and frightened horses
+plunged violently across the road. But we passed them without a
+scratch&mdash;to be stopped by the level-crossing at Hazebrouck. There we
+filled up with coffee and cognac, while the driver told us of his
+adventures in Antwerp.</p>
+
+<p>We rumbled out of Hazebrouck towards St Omer. It was a clear dawn in
+splashes of pure colour. All the villages were peaceful, untouched by
+war. When we came to St Omer it was quite light. All the soldiers in the
+town looked amateurish. We could not make out what was the matter with
+them, until somebody noticed that their buttons shone. We drew up in the
+square, the hap<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 224]</span><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>piest crew imaginable, but with a dignity such as
+befitted chosen N.C.O.'s and officers.</p>
+
+<p>That was the first time I saw St Omer. When last I came to it I saw
+little, because I arrived in a motor-ambulance and left in a
+hospital-train.</p>
+
+<p>The top of the bus was crowded, and we talked "shop" together. <i>Sixth
+Division's having a pretty cushy time, what?&mdash;So you were at Mons!</i> (in
+a tone of respect)&mdash;<i>I don't mind their shells, and I don't mind their
+machine-guns, but their Minenwerfer are the frozen limit!&mdash;I suppose
+there's no chance of our missing the boat. Yes, it was a pretty fair
+scrap&mdash;Smith? He's gone. Silly fool, wanted to have a look round&mdash;Full
+of buck? Rather! Yes, heard there's a pretty good show on at the
+Frivolity&mdash;Beastly cold on top of this old wheezer</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It was, but none of us cared a scrap. We looked at the sign-posts that
+showed the distance to Boulogne, and then pretended that we had not seen
+them. Lurching and skidding and toiling we came to the top of the hill
+above Boulogne. With screaming brakes we rattled down to the harbour.
+That old sinner, Sergeant Maguire, who was in charge of us corporals,
+made all arrangements efficiently. We embarked, and after a year of
+Sundays cast off.</p>
+
+<p>There was a certain swell on, and Mr<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 225]</span><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a> Potter, the bravest of men, grew
+greener and greener. My faith in mankind went.</p>
+
+<p>We saw a dark line on the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, there's England!" We all produced our field-glasses and looked
+through them very carefully for quite a long time.</p>
+
+<p>"So it is. Funny old country"&mdash;a pause&mdash;"Makes one feel quite
+sentimental, just like the books. That's what we're fighting for, I
+suppose. Wouldn't fight for dirty old Dover! Wonder if they still charge
+you a penny for each sardine. I suppose we'll have to draw the blinds
+all the way up to London. Not a safe country by any means, far rather
+stop in the jolly old trenches."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get the white feather, old man."</p>
+
+<p>"No pretty young thing would give it you. Why, you wouldn't look
+medically fit in mufti!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy seeing a woman who isn't dirty and can talk one's own lingo!"</p>
+
+<p>So we came to Folkestone, and all the people on the pier smiled at us.
+We scuttled ashore and shook ourselves for delight. There was a
+policeman, a postman. Who are these fussy fellows with badges on their
+arms? Special constables, of course!</p>
+
+<p>Spurning cigarettes and bovril we rushed to the bar. We all noticed the
+cleanness of the barmaid, her beauty, the neatness <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 226]</span><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>of her dress, her
+cultivated talk. We almost squabbled about what drinks we should have
+first. Finally, we divided into parties&mdash;the Beers and the
+Whisky-and-Sodas. Then there were English papers to buy, and, of course,
+we must have a luncheon-basket....</p>
+
+<p>The smell of the musty S.-E. &amp; C.R. compartment was the scent of eastern
+roses. We sniffed with joy in the tunnels. We read all the notices with
+care. Nearing London we became silent. Quite disregarding the order to
+lower the blinds, we gazed from the bridge at a darkened London and the
+searchlight beams. Feverishly we packed our kit and stood up in the
+carriage. We jerked into the flare of Victoria. Dazzled and confused, we
+looked at the dense crowd of beaming, anxious people. There was a tug at
+my elbow, and a triumphant voice shouted&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I've found him! Here he is! There's your Mother." ...</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>This strange familiar country seemed to us clean, careless, and full of
+men. The streets were clean; the men and women were clean. Out in
+Flanders a little grime came as a matter of course. One's uniform was
+dirty. Well, it had seen service. There was no need to be particular
+about the set <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 227]</span><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>of the tunic and the exact way accoutrements should be
+put on. But here the few men in khaki sprinkled about the streets had
+their buttons cleaned and not a thing was out of place. We wondered
+which of them belonged to the New Armies. The women, too, were clean and
+beautiful. This sounds perhaps to you a foolish thing to say, but it is
+true. The Flemish woman is not so clean as she is painted, and as for
+women dressed with any attempt at fashionable display&mdash;we had seen none
+since August. Nadine at Dour had been neat; H&eacute;l&egrave;ne at Carlepont had been
+companionable; the pretty midinette at Maast had been friendly and not
+over-dirty. For a day or two after I returned to my own country I could
+not imagine how anybody ever could leave it.</p>
+
+<p>And all the people were free from care. However cheerful those brave but
+irritating folk who live behind the line may be, they have always
+shadows in their eyes. We had never been to a village through which the
+Germans had not passed. Portly and hilarious the Teuton may have shown
+himself&mdash;kindly and well-behaved he undoubtedly was in many
+places&mdash;there came with him a terror which stayed after he had gone,
+just as a mist sways above the ground after the night has flown.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 228]</span><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a></p>
+
+<p>At first we thought that no one at home cared about the war&mdash;then we
+realised it was impossible for anybody to care about the war who had not
+seen war. People might be intensely interested in the course of
+operations. They might burn for their country's success, and flame out
+against those who threatened her. They might suffer torments of anxiety
+for a brother in danger, or the tortures of grief for a brother who had
+died. The FACT of war, the terror and the shame, the bestiality and the
+awful horror, the pity and the disgust&mdash;they could never <i>know</i> war. So
+we thought them careless....</p>
+
+<p>Again, though we had been told very many had enlisted, the streets
+seemed ludicrously full of men. In the streets of Flanders there are
+women and children and old men and others. These others would give all
+that they had to put on uniform and march gravely or gaily to the
+trenches. In Flanders a man who is fit and wears no uniform is instantly
+suspected of espionage. I am grinding no axe. I am advocating nothing or
+attacking nothing. I am merely stating as a fact that, suspicious and
+contemptuous as we had been in Flanders of every able-bodied man who was
+not helping to defend his country, it seemed grotesque to us to find so
+many civilian men <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 229]</span><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>in the streets of the country to which we had
+returned.</p>
+
+<p>Of the heavenly quietness and decency of life, of late breakfasts and
+later dinners, there is no need to tell, but even before the week was up
+unrest troubled us. The Division might go violently into action. The
+Germans might break through. The "old Div." would be wanting us, and we
+who felt towards the Division as others feel towards their Regiments
+were eager to get back....</p>
+
+<p>On the boat I met Gibson. At Boulogne we clambered into the same bus and
+passed the time in sipping old rum, eating chocolate biscuits, reading
+the second volume of 'Sinister Street,' and sleeping. At St Omer our
+craving for an omelette nearly lost us the bus. Then we slept. All that
+I can remember of the rest of the journey is that we stopped near
+Bailleul. An anxious corporal popped his head in.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Brown here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye&mdash;e&mdash;s," sleepily, "what the devil do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our battery's in action, sir, a few miles from here. I've got your
+horses ready waiting, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Mr Brown was thoroughly awake in a moment. He disturbed everybody
+collecting <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 230]</span><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>his kit. Then he vanished.</p>
+
+<p>We were late at Bailleul, and there was no one to meet us. The Cyclists
+as usual came to our help. Their gig was waiting, and climbing into it
+we drove furiously to St Jans Cappel. Making some sort of beds for
+ourselves, we fell asleep. When we woke up in the morning our leave was
+a dream.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 231]</span><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>ST JANS CAPPEL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Soon after our return there were rumours of a grand attack. Headquarters
+positively sizzled with the most expensive preparations. At a given word
+the Staff were to dash out in motor-cars to a disreputable tavern, so
+that they could see the shells bursting. A couple of despatch riders
+were to keep with them in order to fetch their cars when the day's work
+was over. A mobile reserve of motor-cyclists was to be established in a
+farm under cover.</p>
+
+<p>The whole scheme was perfect. There was good rabbit-shooting near the
+tavern. The atmosphere inside was so thick that it actually induced
+slumber. The landlady possessed an excellent stove, upon which the
+Staff's lunch, prepared with quiet genius at St Jans, might be heated
+up. The place was dirty enough to give all those in authority, who might
+come round to see <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 232]</span><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>that the British Army was really doing something, a
+vivid conception of the horrors of war. And, as I have said, there was a
+slope behind the road from which lots and lots of shells could be seen
+bursting.</p>
+
+<p>The word came. We arrived at the tavern before dawn. The Staff sauntered
+about outside in delicious anticipation. We all looked at our watches.
+Punctually at six the show began. Guns of all shapes and sizes had been
+concentrated. They made an overwhelming noise. Over the German trenches
+on the near slope of the Messines ridge flashed multitudinous points of
+flame. The Germans were being furiously shelled. The dawn came up while
+the Staff were drinking their matutinal tea. The Staff set itself
+sternly to work. Messages describing events at La Bass&eacute;e poured in. They
+were conscientiously read and rushed over the wires to our brigades. The
+guns were making more noise than they had ever made before. The Germans
+were cowering in their trenches. It was all our officers could do to
+hold back their men, who were straining like hounds in a leash to get at
+the hated foe. A shell fell among some of the gunners' transport and
+wounded a man and two horses. That stiffened us. The news was flashed
+over the wire to G.H.Q. The transport was moved rapidly, but in good
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 233]</span><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>order, to a safer place. The guns fired more furiously than ever.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as there was sufficient light, the General's A.D.C., crammed
+full of the lust for blood, went out and shot some rabbits and some
+indescribable birds, who by this time were petrified with fear. They had
+never heard such a noise before. That other despatch rider sat
+comfortably in a car, finished at his leisure the second volume of
+'Sinister Street,' and wrote a lurid description of a modern battle.</p>
+
+<p>Before the visitors came, the scene was improved by the construction of
+a large dug-out near the tavern. It is true that if the Staff had taken
+to the dug-out they would most certainly have been drowned. That did not
+matter. Every well-behaved Divisional Staff must have a dug-out near its
+Advanced Headquarters. It is always "done."</p>
+
+<p>Never was a Division so lucky in its visitors. A certain young prince of
+high lineage arrived. Everybody saluted at the same time. He was, I
+think, duly impressed by the atmosphere of the tavern, the sight of the
+Staff's maps, the inundated dug-outs, the noise of the guns and the
+funny balls of smoke that the shells made when they exploded over the
+German lines.</p>
+
+<p>What gave this battle a humorous twist <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 234]</span><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>for all time was the delectable
+visit of a Cabinet Minister. He came in a car and brought with him his
+own knife and fork and a loaf of bread as his contribution to the
+Divisional Lunch. When he entered the tavern he smelt among other smells
+the delicious odour of rabbit-pie. With hurried but charming
+condescension he left his loaf on the stove, where it dried for a day or
+two until the landlady had the temerity to appropriate it. He was fed,
+so far as I remember on&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+Soup.<br />
+Fish.<br />
+Rabbit-pie.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Potatoes.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Cabbage.<br />
+Apple-tart.<br />
+Fruit.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Coffee.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Liqueurs.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>and after lunch, I am told, showed a marked disinclination to ascend the
+hill and watch the shells bursting. He was only a "civvy."<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>The battle lasted about ten days. Each morning the Staff, like lazy men
+who are "something in the city," arrived a little later at the tavern.
+Each afternoon they departed a little earlier. The rabbits decreased in
+number, and finally, when two days running the A.D.C. had been able to
+shoot nothing at all, the Division re<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 235]</span><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>turned for good to the Chateau at
+St Jans Cappel.</p>
+
+<p>For this mercy the despatch riders were truly grateful. Sitting the
+whole day in the tavern, we had all contracted bad headaches. Even
+chess, the 'Red Magazine,' and the writing of letters, could do nothing
+to dissipate our unutterable boredom. Never did we pass that tavern
+afterwards without a shudder of disgust. With joyous content we heard a
+month or two later that it had been closed for providing drinks after
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>Officially the grand attack had taken this course. The French to the
+north had been held up by the unexpected strength of the German defence.
+The 3rd Division on our immediate left had advanced a trifle, for the
+Gordons had made a perilous charge into the Petit Bois, a wood at the
+bottom of the Wytschaete Heights. And the Royal Scots had put in some
+magnificent work, for which they were afterwards very properly
+congratulated. The Germans in front of our Division were so cowed by our
+magniloquent display of gunnery that they have remained moderately quiet
+ever since.</p>
+
+<p>After these December man&oelig;uvres nothing of importance happened on our
+front until the spring, when the Germans, whom we had tickled with
+intermittent gunnery right <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 236]</span><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>through the winter, began to retaliate with
+a certain energy.</p>
+
+<p>The Division that has no history is not necessarily happy. There were
+portions of the line, it is true, which provided a great deal of comfort
+and very little danger. Fine dug-outs were constructed&mdash;you have
+probably seen them in the illustrated papers. The men were more at home
+in such trenches than in the ramshackle farms behind the lines. These
+show trenches were emphatically the exception. The average trench on the
+line during last winter was neither comfortable nor safe. Yellow clay,
+six inches to four feet or more of stinking water, many corpses behind
+the trenches buried just underneath the surface-crust, and in front of
+the trenches not buried at all, inveterate sniping from a slightly
+superior position&mdash;these are not pleasant bedfellows. The old Division
+(or rather the new Division&mdash;the infantrymen of the old Division were
+now pitifully few) worked right hard through the winter. When the early
+spring came and the trenches were dry, the Division was sent north to
+bear a hand in the two bloodiest actions of the war. So far as I know,
+in the whole history of British participation in this war there has
+never been a more murderous fight than one of these two <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 237]</span><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>actions&mdash;and
+the Division, with slight outside help, managed the whole affair.</p>
+
+<p>Twice in the winter there was an attempted <i>rapprochement</i> between the
+Germans and ourselves. The more famous gave the Division a mention by
+"Eyewitness," so we all became swollen with pride.</p>
+
+<p>On the Kaiser's birthday one-and-twenty large shells were dropped
+accurately into a farm suspected of being a battalion or brigade
+headquarters. The farm promptly acknowledged the compliment by blowing
+up, and all round it little explosions followed. Nothing pleases a
+gunner more than to strike a magazine. He always swears he knew it was
+there the whole time, and, as gunners are dangerous people to quarrel
+with, we always pretended to believe the tale.</p>
+
+<p>There are many people in England still who cannot stomach the story of
+the Christmas truce. "Out there," we cannot understand why. Good
+fighting men respect good fighting men. On our front, and on the fronts
+of other divisions, the Germans had behaved throughout the winter with a
+passable gentlemanliness. Besides, neither the British nor the German
+soldier&mdash;with the possible exception of the Prussians&mdash;has been able to
+stoke up that virulent hate which devastates so many German and<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 238]</span><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a> British
+homes. A certain lance-corporal puts the matter thus:<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We're fightin' for somethink what we've got. Those poor beggars is
+fightin' cos they've got to. An' old Bill Kayser's fightin' for
+somethin' what 'e'll never get. But 'e will get somethink, and that's a
+good 'iding!"<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>We even had a sneaking regard for that "cunning old bird, Kayser Bill."
+Our treatment of prisoners explains the Christmas Truce. The British
+soldier, except when he is smarting under some dirty trick, suffering
+under terrible loss, or maddened by fighting or fatigue, treats his
+prisoners with a tolerant, rather contemptuous kindness. May God in His
+mercy help any poor German who falls into the hands of a British soldier
+when the said German has "done the dirty" or has "turned nasty"! There
+is no judge so remorseless, no executioner so ingenious in making the
+punishment fit the crime.</p>
+
+<p>This is what I wrote home a day or two after Christmas: From six on
+Christmas Eve to six in the evening on Christmas Day there was a truce
+between two regi<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 239]</span><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>ments of our Division and the Germans opposite them.
+Heads popped up and were not sniped. Greetings were called across. One
+venturesome, enthusiastic German got out of his trench and stood waving
+a branch of Christmas Tree. Soon there was a fine pow-wow going on.
+Cigars were exchanged for tobacco. Friendship was pledged in socks. The
+Germans brought out some beer and the English some rum. Finally, on
+Christmas Day, there was a great concert and dance. The Germans were
+spruce, elderly men, keen and well fed, with buttons cleaned for the
+occasion. They appeared to have plenty of supplies, and were fully
+equipped with everything necessary for a winter campaign. A third
+battalion, wisely but churlishly, refused these seasonable advances, and
+shot four men who appeared with a large cask of what was later
+discovered to be beer....</p>
+
+<p>"The Div." were billeted in a chateau on the slope of a hill
+three-quarters of a mile above St Jans Cappel. This desirable residence
+stands in two acres of garden, just off the road. At the gate was a
+lodge. Throughout the winter we despatch riders lived in two small rooms
+of this lodge. We averaged fourteen in number. Two were out with the
+brigades, leaving twelve to live, eat, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 240]</span><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>and sleep in two rooms, each
+about 15 ft. by 8 ft. We were distinctly cramped, and cursed the day
+that had brought us to St Jans. It was a cruel stroke that gave us for
+our winter quarters the worst billets we had ever suffered.</p>
+
+<p>As we became inclined to breakfast late, nine o'clock parade was
+instituted. Breakfast took place before or after, as the spirit listed.
+Bacon, tea, and bread came from the cook. We added porridge and
+occasionally eggs. The porridge we half-cooked the night before.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast we began to clean our bicycles, no light task, and the
+artificers started on repairs. The cleaning process was usually broken
+into by the arrival of the post and the papers of the day before.
+Cleaning the bicycles, sweeping out the rooms, reading and writing
+letters, brought us to dinner at 1.</p>
+
+<p>This consisted of bully or fresh meat stew with vegetables (or
+occasionally roast or fried meat), bread and jam. As we became more
+luxurious we would provide for ourselves Yorkshire pudding, which we
+discovered trying to make pancakes, and pancakes, which we discovered
+trying to make Yorkshire pudding. Worcester Sauce and the invaluable
+curry powder were never wanting. After dinner we smoked a lethargic
+pipe.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 241]</span><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a></p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon it was customary to take some exercise. To reduce the
+strain on our back tyres we used to trudge manfully down into the
+village, or, if we were feeling energetic, to the ammunition column a
+couple of miles away. Any distance over two miles we covered on
+motor-cycles. Their use demoralised us. Our legs shrunk away.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes two or three of us would ride to a sand-pit on Mont Noir and
+blaze away with our revolvers. Incidentally, not one of us had fired a
+shot in anger since the war began. We treated our revolvers as
+unnecessary luggage. In time we became skilled in their use, and
+thereafter learnt to keep them moderately clean. We had been served out
+with revolvers at Chatham, but had never practised with them&mdash;except at
+Carlow for a morning, and then we were suffering from the effects of
+inoculation. They may be useful when we get to Germany.</p>
+
+<p>Shopping in Bailleul was less strenuous. We were always buying something
+for supper&mdash;a kilo of liver, some onions, a few sausages&mdash;anything that
+could be cooked by the unskilled on a paraffin-stove. Then after
+shopping there were caf&eacute;s we could drop into, sure of a welcome. It was
+impossible to live from November to March "within easy reach of town"
+and not make friends.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 242]</span><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a></p>
+
+<p>Milk for tea came from the farm in which No. 1 Section of the Signal
+Company was billeted. When first we were quartered at St Jans this
+section wallowed in some mud a little above the chateau.</p>
+
+<p>Because I had managed to make myself understood to some German
+prisoners, I was looked upon as a great linguist, and vulgarly credited
+with a knowledge of all the European languages. So I was sent, together
+with the Quartermaster-Sergeant and the Sergeant-Major, on billeting
+expeditions. Arranging for quarters at the farm, I made great friends
+with the farmer. He was a tall, thin, lithe old man, with a crumpled
+wife and prodigiously large family. He was a man of affairs, too, for
+once a month in peace time he would drive into Hazebrouck. While his
+wife got me the milk, we used to sit by the fire and smoke our pipes and
+discuss the terrible war and the newspapers. One of the most
+embarrassing moments I have ever experienced was when he bade me tell
+the sergeants that he regarded them as brothers, and loved them all. I
+said it first in French, that he might hear, and then in English. The
+sergeants blushed, while the old man beamed.</p>
+
+<p>We loved the Flemish, and, for the most part, they loved us. When
+British soldiers arrived in a village the men became clean, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 243]</span><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>the women
+smart, and the boys inevitably procured putties and wore them with
+pride. The British soldier is certainly not insular. He tries hard to
+understand the words and ways of his neighbours. He has a rough tact, a
+crude courtesy, and a great-hearted generosity. In theory no task could
+be more difficult than the administration of the British Area. Even a
+friendly military occupation is an uncomfortable burden. Yet never have
+I known any case of real ill-feeling. Personally, during my nine months
+at the Front, I have always received from the French and the Belgians
+amazing kindness and consideration. As an officer I came into contact
+with village and town officials over questions of billets and
+requisitions. In any difficulty I received courteous assistance. No
+trouble was too great; no time was too valuable....</p>
+
+<p>After tea of cakes and rolls the bridge-players settled down to a quiet
+game, with pipes to hand and whisky and siphons on the sideboard. We
+took it in turns to cook some delicacy for supper at 8&mdash;sausages,
+curried sardines, liver and bacon, or&mdash;rarely but joyously&mdash;fish. At one
+time or another we feasted on all the luxuries, but fish was rarer than
+rubies. When we had it we did not care if we stank out the whole lodge
+with odours of its frying. We would lie down <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 244]</span><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>to sleep content in a
+thick fishy, paraffin-y, dripping-y atmosphere. When I came home I could
+not think what the delicious smell was in a certain street. Then my
+imagination struck out a picture&mdash;Grimers laboriously frying a dab over
+a smoky paraffin-stove.</p>
+
+<p>On occasions after supper we would brew a large jorum of good rum-punch,
+sing songs with roaring choruses, and finish up the evening with a good
+old scrap over somebody else's bed. The word went round to "mobilise,"
+and we would all stand ready, each on his bed, to repel boarders. If the
+sanctity of your bed were violated, the intruder would be cast
+vigorously into outer darkness. Another song, another drink, a final
+pipe, and to bed.</p>
+
+<p>Our Christmas would have been a grand day if it had not been away from
+home.</p>
+
+<p>At eight o'clock there was breakfast of porridge, bacon and eggs, and
+bloaters&mdash;everybody in the best of spirits. About nine the Skipper
+presented us with cards from the King and Queen. Then the mail came in,
+but it was poor. By the time we had tidied up our places and done a
+special Christmas shave and wash, we were called upon to go down to the
+cookhouse and sign for Princess Mary's Christmas gift&mdash;a good pipe, and
+in a pleasant little brass box lay a Christmas card, a photograph, a
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 245]</span><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>packet of cigarettes, and another of excellent tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>It was now lunch-time&mdash;steak and potatoes.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon was spent on preparations for our great and unexampled
+dinner. Grimers printed the menu, and while I made some cold curried
+sardines, the rest went down into the village to stimulate the landlady
+of the inn where we were going to dine.</p>
+
+<p>In the village a brigade was billeted, and that brigade was, of course,
+"on the wire." It was arranged that the despatch riders next on the list
+should take their motor-cycles down and be summoned over the wire if
+they were needed. An order had come round that unimportant messages were
+to be kept until the morning.</p>
+
+<p>We dined in the large kitchen of the <i>Maison Commune Estaminet</i>, at a
+long table decorated with mistletoe and holly. The dinner&mdash;the result of
+two days' "scrounging" under the direction of George&mdash;was too good to be
+true. We toasted each other and sang all the songs we knew. Two of the
+Staff clerks wandered in and told us we were the best of all possible
+despatch riders. We drank to them uproariously. Then a Scotsman turned
+up with a noisy recitation. Finally, we all strolled home up the hill
+singing loudly and pleasantly, very exhilarated, in sure <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 246]</span><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>and certain
+belief we had spent the best of all possible evenings.</p>
+
+<p>In the dwelling of the Staff there was noise of revelry. Respectable
+captains with false noses peered out of windows. Our Fat Boy declaimed
+in the signal office on the iniquities of the artillery telegraphists.
+Sadders sent gentle messages of greeting over the wires. He was still a
+little piqued at his failure to secure the piper of the K.O.S.B., who
+had been commandeered by the Staff. Sadders waited for him until early
+morning and then steered him to our lodge, but the piper was by then too
+tired to play.</p>
+
+<p>Here is our bill of fare:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><big>CHRISTMAS,</big> 1914.<br /></div>
+
+<div class="center">DINNER</div>
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">of the</span></div>
+
+<div class="center">TEN SURVIVING MOTOR-CYCLISTS OF THE<br />
+FAMOUS FIFTH DIVISION.</div>
+
+<div class="center">Sardins tr&egrave;s Moutard.<br />
+Potage.<br />
+Dindon R&ocirc;ti-Saucisses. Oise R&ocirc;ti.<br />
+Petits Choux de Bruxelles.<br />
+Pommes de Terre.<br />
+Pouding de No&euml;l Rhum.<br />
+Dessert. Caf&eacute;. Liqueurs.<br />
+<i>Vins.</i>&mdash;Champagne. Moselle. <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original text missing period">Port.</ins><br />
+Benedictine. Whisky.</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 247]</span><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>On the reverse page we put our battle-honours&mdash;Mons, Le Cateau,
+Cr&ecirc;py-en-Valois, the Marne, the Aisne, La Bass&eacute;e, the Defence of
+Ypres.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>We beat the Staff on the sprouts, but the Staff countered by
+appropriating the piper.</p>
+
+<p>Work dwindled until it became a farce. One run for each despatch rider
+every third day was the average. St Jans was not the place we should
+have chosen for a winter resort. Life became monotonous, and we all with
+one accord began applying for commissions. Various means were used to
+break the monotony. Grimers, under the Skipper's instructions, began to
+plant vegetables for the spring, but I do not think he ever got much
+beyond mustard and cress. On particularly unpleasant days we were told
+off to make fascines. N'Soon assisted the Quartermaster-Sergeant. Cecil
+did vague things with the motor-lorry. I was called upon to write the
+Company's War Diary. Even the Staff became restless and took to
+night-walks behind the trenches. If it had not been for the generous
+supply of "days off" that the Skipper allowed us, we should by February
+have begun to gibber.</p>
+
+<p>Despatches were of two kinds&mdash;ordinary <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 248]</span><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>and priority. "Priority"
+despatches could only be sent by the more important members of the
+Staff. They were supposed to be important, were marked "priority" in the
+corner, and taken at once in a hurry. Ordinary despatches went by the
+morning and evening posts. During the winter a regular system of
+motor-cyclist posts was organised right through the British Area. A
+message could be sent from Neuve Eglise to Chartres in about two days.
+Our posts formed the first or last stage of the journey. The morning
+post left at 7.30 <span class="smcap">a.m</span>., and the evening at 3.30 <span class="smcap">p.m</span>.
+All the units of the division were visited.</p>
+
+<p>If the roads were moderately good and no great movements of troops were
+proceeding, the post took about 1-1/4 hours; so the miserable postman
+was late either for breakfast or for tea. It was routine work pure and
+simple. After six weeks we knew every stone in the roads. The postman
+never came under fire. He passed through one village which was
+occasionally shelled, but, while I was with the Signal Company, the
+postman and the shells never arrived at the village at the same time.
+There was far more danger from lorries and motor ambulances than from
+shells.</p>
+
+<p>As for the long line of "postmen" that stretched back into the dim
+interior of<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 249]</span><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a> France&mdash;it was rarely that they even heard the guns. When
+they did hear them, they would, I am afraid, pluck a racing helmet from
+their pockets, draw the ear-flaps well down over their ears, bend down
+over their racing handle-bars, and sprint for dear life. Returning
+safely to Abb&eacute;ville, they would write hair-raising accounts of the
+dangers they had passed through to the motor-cycling papers. It is only
+right that I should here once and for all confess&mdash;there is no finer
+teller of tall stories than the motor-cyclist despatch rider....</p>
+
+<p>From December to February the only time I was under shell fire was late
+in December, when the Grand Attack was in full train. A certain brigade
+headquarters had taken refuge inconsiderately in advanced dug-outs. As I
+passed along the road to them some shrapnel was bursting a quarter of a
+mile away. So long was it since I had been under fire that the noise of
+our own guns disturbed me. In the spring, after I had left the Signal
+Company, the roads were not so healthy. George experienced the delights
+of a broken chain on a road upon which the Germans were registering
+accurately with shrapnel. Church, a fine fellow, and quite the most
+promising of our recruits, was killed in his billet by a shell when
+attached to a brigade.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 250]</span><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a></p>
+
+<p>Taking the post rarely meant just a pleasant spin, because it rained in
+Flanders from September to January.</p>
+
+<p>One day I started out from D.H.Q. at 3.30 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> with the
+afternoon post, and reached the First Brigade well up to time. Then it
+began to rain, at first slightly, and then very heavily indeed, with a
+bagful of wind. On a particularly open stretch of road&mdash;the rain was
+stinging sharply&mdash;the engine stopped. With a heroic effort I tugged the
+bicycle through some mud to the side of a shed, in the hope that when
+the wind changed&mdash;it did not&mdash;I might be under cover. I could not see. I
+could not grip&mdash;and of course I could not find out what the matter was.</p>
+
+<p>After I had been working for about half an hour the two artillery
+motor-cyclists came along. I stopped them to give me a hand and to do as
+much work as I could possibly avoid doing myself while preserving an
+appearance of omniscience.</p>
+
+<p>We worked for an hour or more. It was now so dark that I could not
+distinguish one motor-cyclist from another. The rain rained faster than
+it had ever rained before, and the gale was so violent that we could
+scarcely keep our feet. Finally, we diagnosed a complaint that could not
+be cured <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 251]</span><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>by the roadside. So we stopped working, to curse and admire
+the German rockets.</p>
+
+<p>There was an estaminet close by. It had appeared shut, but when we began
+to curse a light shone in one of the windows. So I went in and settled
+to take one of the artillery motor-cycles and deliver the rest of my
+quite unimportant despatches. It would not start. We worked for twenty
+minutes in the rain vainly, then a motor-cyclist turned up from the
+nearest brigade to see what had become of me,&mdash;the progress of the post
+is checked over the wire. We arranged matters&mdash;but then neither his
+motor-cycle nor the motor-cycle of the second artillery motor-cyclist
+would start. It was laughable. Eventually we got the brigade despatch
+rider started with my report.</p>
+
+<p>A fifth motor-cyclist, who discreetly did not stop his engine, took my
+despatches back to "the Div." The second artillery motor-cycle we
+started after quarter of an hour's prodigious labour. The first and mine
+were still obstinate, so he and I retired to the inn, drank brandy and
+hot water, and conversed amiably with madame.</p>
+
+<p>Madame, who together with innumerable old men and children inhabited the
+inn, was young and pretty and intelligent&mdash;black hair, sallow and
+symmetrical face, expressive mouth, slim and graceful limbs. Talking
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 252]</span><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>the language, we endeavoured to make our forced company pleasant. That
+other despatch rider, still steaming from the stove, sat beside a
+charming Flemish woman, and endeavoured, amid shrieks of laughter, to
+translate the jokes in an old number of 'London Opinion.'</p>
+
+<p>A Welsh lad came in&mdash;a perfect Celt of nineteen, dark and lithe, with a
+momentary smile and a wild desire to see India. Then some Cheshires
+arrived. They were soaked and very weary. One old reservist staggered to
+a chair. We gave him some brandy and hot water. He chattered
+unintelligibly for a moment about his wife and children. He began to
+doze, so his companion took him out, and they tottered along after their
+company.</p>
+
+<p>A dog of no possible breed belonged to the estaminet. Madame called him
+"Automobile Anglais," because he was always rushing about for no
+conceivable reason.</p>
+
+<p>We were sorry when at 9.50 the lorry came for the bicycles. Our second
+driver was an ex-London cabby, with a crude wit expressed in impossible
+French that our hostess delightfully parried. On the way back he told me
+how he had given up the three taxis he had owned to do "his bit," how
+the other men had laughed at him <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 253]</span><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>because he was so old, how he had met
+a prisoner who used to whistle for the taxis in Russell Square. We
+talked also of the men in the trenches, of fright, and of the end of the
+war. We reached D.H.Q. about 10.30, and after a large bowl of porridge I
+turned in.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 254]</span><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>BEHIND THE LINES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I had intended to write down a full description of the country
+immediately behind our present line. The Skipper, for fear we should
+become stale, allowed us plenty of leave. We would make little
+expeditions to B&eacute;thune for the baths, spend an afternoon riding round
+Armenti&egrave;res, or run over to Poperinghe for a chop. We even arranged for
+a visit to the Belgian lines, but that excursion was forbidden by a new
+order. Right through the winter we had "unrivalled opportunities"&mdash;as
+the journalists would say&mdash;of becoming intimate with that strip of
+Flanders which extends from Ypres to B&eacute;thune. Whether I can or may
+describe it is a matter for care. A too affectionate description of the
+neighbourhood of Wulverghem, for instance, would be unwise. But I see no
+reason why I should not state as a fact that a most excellent dry
+Martini could <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 255]</span><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>be obtained in Ypres up to the evening of April 22.</p>
+
+<p>Wretched Ypres has been badly over-written. Before the war it was a
+pleasant city, little visited by travellers because it lay on a badly
+served branch line. The inhabitants tell me it was never much troubled
+with tourists. One burgher explained the situation to me with a comical
+mixture of sentiment and reason.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, sir, that our Cathedral is shattered and the Cloth Hall a
+ruin. May those devils, the dirty Germans, roast in Hell! But after the
+war we shall be the richest city in Belgium. All England will flock to
+Ypres. Is it not a monstrous cemetery? Are there not woods and villages
+and farms at which the brave English have fought like lions to earn for
+themselves eternal fame, and for the city an added glory? The good God
+gives His compensations after great wars. There will be many to buy our
+lace and fill our restaurants."</p>
+
+<p>Mr John Buchan and Mr Valentine Williams and others have "written up"
+Ypres. The exact state of the Cloth Hall at any given moment is the
+object of solicitude. The shattered Belgian homes have been described
+over and over again. The important things about Ypres have been left
+unsaid.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 256]</span><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a></p>
+
+<p>Near the station there was a man who really could mix cocktails. He was
+no blundering amateur, but an expert with the subtlest touch. And in the
+Rue de Lille a fashionable dressmaker turned her <i>atelier</i> into a
+tea-room. She used to provide coffee or chocolate, or even tea, and the
+most delicious little cakes. Of an afternoon you would sit on
+comfortable chairs at a neat table covered with a fair cloth and talk to
+your hostess. A few hats daintily remained on stands, but, as she said,
+they were last year's hats, unworthy of our notice.</p>
+
+<p>A pleasant afternoon could be spent on the old ramparts. We were there,
+as a matter of fact, to do a little building-up and clearing-away when
+the German itch for destruction proved too strong for their more
+gentlemanly feelings. We lay on the grass in the sun and smoked our
+pipes, looking across the placid moat to Zillebeke Vyver, Verbranden
+Molen, and the slight curve of Hill 60. The landscape was full of
+interest. Here was shrapnel bursting over entirely empty fields. There
+was a sapper repairing a line. The Germans were shelling the town, and
+it was a matter of skill to decide when the lumbersome old shell was
+heard exactly where it would fall. Then we would walk back into the town
+for tea and look in at that particularly enter<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 257]</span><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>prising grocer's in the
+Square to see his latest novelties in tinned goods.</p>
+
+<p>From Ypres the best road in Flanders runs by Vlamertinghe to Poperinghe.
+It is a good macadam road, made, doubtless by perfidious Albion's money,
+just before the war.</p>
+
+<p>Poperinghe has been an age-long rival of Ypres. Even to-day its
+inhabitants delight to tell you the old municipal scandals of the larger
+town, and the burghers of Ypres, if they see a citizen of Poperinghe in
+their streets, believe he has come to gloat over their misfortunes.
+Ypres is an Edinburgh and Poperinghe a Glasgow. Ypres was
+self-consciously "old world" and loved its buildings. Poperinghe is
+modern, and perpetrated a few years ago the most terrible of town halls.
+There are no cocktails in Poperinghe, but there is good whisky and most
+excellent beer.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget my feelings when one morning in a certain
+wine-merchant's cellar I saw several eighteen-gallon casks of Bass's
+Pale Ale. I left Poperinghe in a motor-ambulance, and the Germans
+shelled it next day, but my latest advices state that the ale is still
+intact.</p>
+
+<p>Across the road from the wine-merchant's is a delectable tea-shop. There
+is a tea-shop at Bailleul, the "Allies Tea-Rooms." It was started early
+in March. It is full <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 258]</span><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>of bad blue china and inordinately expensive. Of
+the tea-shop at Poperinghe I cannot speak too highly. There is a vast
+variety of the most delicious cakes. The proprietress is pleasant and
+her maids are obliging. It is also cheap. I have only one fault to find
+with it&mdash;the room is small. Infantry officers walk miles into Poperinghe
+for their tea and then find the room crowded with those young subalterns
+who supply us with our bully. They bring in bulldogs and stay a long
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Dickebusch used to be a favourite Sunday afternoon's ride for the
+Poperinghe wheelers. They would have tea at the restaurant on the north
+of Dickebusch Vyver, and afterwards go for a row in the little
+flat-bottomed boats, accompanied, no doubt, by some nice dark Flemish
+girls. The village, never very pleasant, is now the worse for wear. I
+remember it with no kindly feelings, because, having spent a night there
+with the French, I left them in the morning too early to obtain a
+satisfactory meal, and arrived at Headquarters too late for any
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from Dickebusch is the Desolate Chateau. Before the war it was a
+handsome place, built by a rich coal-merchant from Lille. I visited it
+on a sunny morning. At the southern gate there was a little black and
+shapeless heap fluttering a rag in the wind. I saluted and passed on,
+sick at <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 259]</span><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>heart. The grounds were pitted with shell-holes: the
+cucumber-frames were shattered. Just behind the chateau was a wee
+village of dug-outs. Now they are slowly falling in. And the chateau
+itself?</p>
+
+<p>It had been so proud of its finery, its pseudo-Greek columns, and its
+rich furnishings. Battered and confused&mdash;there is not a room of it which
+is not open to the wind from the sea. The pictures lie prostrate on the
+floor before their ravisher. The curtains are torn and faded. The papers
+of its master are scattered over the carpet and on the rifled desk. In
+the bedroom of its mistress her linen has been thrown about wildly; yet
+her two silver brushes still lie on the dressing-table. Even the
+children's room had been pillaged, and the books, torn and defaced, lay
+in a rough heap.</p>
+
+<p>All was still. At the foot of the garden there was a little village half
+hidden by trees. Not a sound came from it. Away on the ridge miserable
+Wytschaete stood hard against the sky, a mass of trembling ruins. Then
+two soldiers came, and finding a boat rowed noisily round the tiny lake,
+and the shells murmured harshly as they flew across to Ypres. Some ruins
+are dead stones, but the broken houses of Flanders are pitifully
+alive&mdash;like the wounded men who lie between the trenches and cannot be
+saved....<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 260]</span><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a></p>
+
+<p>Half a mile south from Dickebusch are cross-roads, and the sign-post
+tells you that the road to the left is the road to Wytschaete&mdash;but
+Wytschaete faces Kemmel and Messines faces Wulverghem.</p>
+
+<p>I was once walking over the hills above Witzenhausen,&mdash;the cherries by
+the roadside were wonderful that year,&mdash;and coming into a valley we
+asked a man how we might best strike a path into the next valley over
+the shoulder of the hill. He said he did not know, because he had never
+been over the hill. The people of the next valley were strangers to him.
+When first I came to a sign-post that told me how to get to a village I
+could not reach with my life, I thought of those hills above
+Witzenhausen. From Wulverghem to Messines is exactly two kilometres. It
+is ludicrous.</p>
+
+<p>Again, one afternoon I was riding over the pass between Mont Noir and
+Mont Vidaigne. I looked to the east and saw in the distance the smoke of
+a train, just as from Harrow you might see the Scottish Express on the
+North-Western main line. For a moment I did not realise that the train
+was German, that the purpose of its journey was to kill me and my
+fellow-men. But it is too easy to sentimentalise, to labour the stark
+fact that war is a grotesque, irrational absurdity....<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 261]</span><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a></p>
+
+<p>Following the main road south from Dickebusch you cross the frontier and
+come to Bailleul, a town of which we were heartily sick before the
+winter was far gone. In peace it would be once seen and never
+remembered. It has no character, though I suppose the "Faucon" is as
+well known to Englishmen now as any hotel in Europe. There are better
+shops in B&eacute;thune and better caf&eacute;s in Poperinghe. Of the "Allies
+Tea-Rooms" I have already written.</p>
+
+<p>Bailleul is famous for one thing alone&mdash;its baths. Just outside the town
+is a large and modern asylum that contains a good plunge-bath for the
+men and gorgeous hot baths for officers. There are none better behind
+the line. Tuesdays and Fridays were days of undiluted joy.</p>
+
+<p>Armenti&egrave;res is sprawling and ugly and full of dirt&mdash;a correct and
+middle-class town that reminded me of Bristol. In front of it are those
+trenches, of which many tales wandered up and down the line. Here the
+Christmas truce is said to have been prolonged for three weeks or more.
+Here the men are supposed to prefer their comfortable trenches to their
+billets, though when they "come out" they are cheered by the Follies and
+the Fancies. On this section of the line is the notorious Plugstreet
+Wood, that show-place to which all <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'distinguised'">distinguished</ins> but valuable visitors
+are taken. Other corps have sighed <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 262]</span><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>for the gentle delights of this
+section of the line....</p>
+
+<p>South-west from Armenti&egrave;res the country is as level as it can be. It is
+indeed possible to ride from Ypres to B&eacute;thune without meeting any hill
+except the slight ascent from La Clytte. Steenwerck, Erquinghem, Croix
+du Bac, and, farther west, Merris and Vieux Berquin, have no virtue
+whatsoever. There is little country flatter and uglier than the country
+between Bailleul and B&eacute;thune.</p>
+
+<p>One morning Huggie, Cecil, and I obtained leave to visit B&eacute;thune and the
+La Bass&eacute;e district. It was in the middle of January, three months after
+we had left Beuvry. We tore into Bailleul and bumped along the first
+mile of the Armenti&egrave;res road. That mile is without any doubt the most
+excruciatingly painful <i>pav&eacute;</i> in the world. We crossed the railway and
+raced south. The roads were good and there was little traffic, but the
+sudden apparition of a motor-lorry round a sharp corner sent that other
+despatch rider into the ditch. Estaires, as always, produced much
+grease. It began to rain, but we held on by La Gorgue and Lestrem,
+halting only once for the necessary caf&eacute;-cognac.</p>
+
+<p>We were stopped for our passes at the bridge into B&eacute;thune by a private
+of the London Scottish. I rejoiced exceedingly, and finding Alec, took
+him off to a bath and then to the restaurant where I had break<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 263]</span><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>fasted
+when first we came to B&eacute;thune. The meal was as good as it had been three
+months before, and the flapper as charming.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> After lunch we had our
+hair cut. Then Cecil took us to the little blue-and-white caf&eacute; for tea.
+She did play the piano, but two subalterns of the less combatant type
+came in and put us to flight. A corporal is sometimes at such a
+disadvantage.</p>
+
+<p>We rode along the canal bank to Beuvry Station, and found that our
+filthy old quarters had been cleaned up and turned into an Indian
+dressing-station. We went on past the cross-roads at Gorre, where an
+Indian battalion was waiting miserably under the dripping trees. The sun
+was just setting behind some grey clouds. The fields were flooded with
+ochreous water. Since last I had been along the road the country had
+been "searched" too thoroughly. One wall of 1910 farm remained. Chickens
+pecked feebly among the rest of it.</p>
+
+<p>Coming into Festubert I felt that something was wrong. The village had
+been damnably shelled&mdash;that I had expected&mdash;and there was not a soul to
+be seen. I thought of the father and mother and <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 264]</span><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>daughter who, returning
+to their home while we were there in October, had wept because a fuse
+had gone through the door and the fireplace and all their glass had been
+broken. Their house was now a heap of nothing in particular. The mirror
+I had used lay broken on the top of about quarter of a wall. Still
+something was wrong, and Huggie, who had been smiling at my puzzled
+face, said gently in an off-hand way&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Seen the church?"</p>
+
+<p>That was it! The church had simply disappeared. In the old days riding
+up from Gorre the fine tower of the church rose above the houses at the
+end of the street. The tower had been shelled and had fallen crashing
+through the roof.</p>
+
+<p>We met a sapper coming out of a cottage. He was rather amused at our
+sentimental journey, and warned us that the trenches were considerably
+nearer the village than they had been in our time. We determined to push
+on as it was now dusk, but my engine jibbed, and we worked on it in the
+gloom among the dark and broken houses. The men in the trenches roused
+themselves to a sleepless night, and intermittent rifle-shots rang out
+in the damp air.</p>
+
+<p>We rode north to the Estaminet de l'Epinette, passing a road which
+forking to the right led to a German barricade. The estaminet still
+lived, but farther down the <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 265]</span><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>road the old house which had sheltered a
+field ambulance was a pile of rubbish. On we rode by La Couture to
+Estaires, where we dined, and so to St Jans Cappel....</p>
+
+<p>Do you know what the Line means? When first we came to Landrecies the
+thought of the Frontier as something strong and stark had thrilled us
+again and again, but the Frontier was feeble and is nothing. A man of
+Poperinghe told me his brother was professor, his son was serving, his
+wife and children were "over there." He pointed to the German lines. Of
+his wife and children he has heard nothing for four months. Some of us
+are fighting to free "German" Flanders, the country where life is dark
+and bitter. Those behind our line, however confident they may be, live
+in fear, for if the line were to retire a little some of them would be
+cast into the bitter country. A day will come "when the whole line will
+advance," and the welcome we shall receive then from those who have come
+out of servitude!... There are men and women in France who live only for
+that day, just as there are those in this country who would welcome the
+day of death, so that they might see again those they love....</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>You may have gathered from my former <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 266]</span><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>letters that no friction took
+place between the professional and amateur soldiers of the Signal
+Company. I have tried all through my letters to give you a very truthful
+idea of our life, and my account would not be complete without some
+description of the Signal Company and its domestic affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Think for a moment of what happened at the beginning of August. More
+than a dozen 'Varsity men were thrown like Daniels into a den of
+mercenaries. We were awkwardly privileged persons&mdash;full corporals with a
+few days' service. Motor-cycling gave superlative opportunities of
+freedom. Our duties were "flashy," and brought us into familiar contact
+with officers of rank. We were highly paid, and thought to have much
+money of our own. In short, we who were soldiers of no standing
+possessed the privileges that a professional soldier could win only
+after many years' hard work.</p>
+
+<p>Again, it did not help matters that our Corps was a Corps of intelligent
+experts who looked down on the ordinary "Tommy," that our Company had
+deservedly the reputation of being one of the best Signal Companies in
+the Army&mdash;a reputation which has been enhanced and duly rewarded in the
+present war. These motor-cyclists were not only experimental
+interlopers. They might even "let down" the Company.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 267]</span><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a></p>
+
+<p>We expected jealousy and unpleasantness, which we hoped to overcome by
+hard work. We found a tactful kindness that was always smoothing the
+rough way, helping us amusedly, and giving us more than our due, and a
+thorough respect where respect was deserved. It was astonishing, but
+then we did not know the professional soldier. During the winter there
+was a trifle of friction over cooking, the work of the Signal Office,
+and the use and abuse of motor-cycles. It would have been a
+poor-spirited company if there had been none. But the friction was
+transitory, and left no acid feeling.</p>
+
+<p>I should like to pay my compliments to a certain commanding officer, but
+six months' work under him has convinced me that he does not like
+compliments. Still, there remains that dinner at the end of the war, and
+then...!</p>
+
+<p>The Sergeant-Major frightened us badly at first. He looked so much like
+a Sergeant-Major, and a Sergeant-Major is more to be feared than the
+C.O., or the General, or the A.P.M., or anybody else in this
+disciplinary world. He can make life Hell or Heaven or a judicious
+compromise. Our Sergeant-Major believed in the judicious compromise with
+a tendency towards Heaven. When any question arose between professional
+and amateur, he dealt with it im<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 268]</span><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>partially. At other times he was
+inclined to let us work out our own salvation. I have always had a
+mighty respect for the Sergeant-Major, but have never dared tell him so.
+Perhaps he will read this.</p>
+
+<p>The "Quarter-Bloke"<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> was a jewel. He was suddenly called upon to keep
+us supplied with things of which he had never even heard the names. He
+rose to the occasion like a hero or Mr Selfridge's buyer. Never did he
+pass by an unconsidered trifle. One day a rumour went round that we
+might get side-cars. That was enough for the Quarter-Bloke. He picked up
+every large-sized tyre he thought might come in useful. The side-cars
+came. There was a rush for tyres. The Quarter-Bloke did not rush. He
+only smiled.</p>
+
+<p>His great triumph was the affair of the leather jackets. A maternal
+Government thought to send us out leather jackets. After tea the Q.-B.
+bustled in with them. We rode out with them the next morning. The 2nd
+Corps had not yet received theirs. We were the first motor-cyclists in
+our part of the world to appear in flaring chrome. The Q.-B. smiled
+again.</p>
+
+<p>I always think the Quarter-Bloke is wasted. He ought to be put in charge
+of the Looting Department of a large invading army. Do <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 269]</span><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>not
+misunderstand me. The Q.-B. never "looted." He never stepped a
+hair's-breadth outside those regulations that hedge round the
+Quartermaster. He was just a man with a prophetic instinct, who, while
+others passed blindly by, picked up things because they might come in
+useful some day&mdash;and they always did. Finally, the Q.-B. was
+companionable. He could tell a good story, and make merry decorously, as
+befitted a Company Quartermaster-Sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>Of the other sergeants I will make no individual mention. We took some
+for better, and some for worse, but they were all good men, who knew
+their job.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was "Ginger," the cook. I dare not describe his personal
+appearance lest I should meet him again&mdash;and I want to&mdash;but it was
+remarkable. So was his language. One of us had a fair gift that way, and
+duels were frequent, but "Ginger" always had the last word. He would
+keep in reserve a monstrously crude sulphurous phrase with a sting of
+humour in its tail, and, when our fellow had concluded triumphantly with
+an exotic reference to Ginger's hereditary characteristics, Ginger would
+hesitate a moment, as if thinking, and then out with <i>it</i>. Obviously
+there was no more to be said.</p>
+
+<p>I have ever so much more to tell about the Signal Company in detail and
+dialogue.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 270]</span><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a> Perhaps some day I shall have the courage to say it, but I
+shall be careful to hide about whom I am writing....</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The "commission fever," which we had caught on the Aisne and, more
+strongly, at Beuvry, swept over us late in January. Moulders, who had
+lost his own company and joined on to us during the Retreat, had retired
+into the quietude of the A.S.C. Cecil was selected to go home and train
+the despatch riders of the New Armies.</p>
+
+<p>There were points in being "an officer and a gentleman." Dirt and
+discomfort were all very well when there was plenty of work to do, and
+we all decided that every officer should have been in the ranks, but
+despatch-riding had lost its savour. We had become postmen. Thoughts of
+the days when we had dashed round picking-up brigades, had put
+battalions on the right road, and generally made ourselves conspicuous,
+if not useful, discontented us. So we talked it over.</p>
+
+<p>Directing the operations of a very large gun seemed a good job. There
+would not be much moving to do, because monster guns were notoriously
+immobile. Hours are regular; the food is good, and can generally be
+eaten in comparative safety. If the gun had a very long range it would
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 271]</span><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>be quite difficult to hit. Unfortunately gunnery is a very technical
+job, and requires some acquaintance with Algebra. So we gave up the
+idea.</p>
+
+<p>We did not dote on the cavalry, for many reasons. First, when cavalry is
+not in action it does nothing but clean its stables and exercise its
+horses. Second, if ever we broke through the German lines the cavalry
+would probably go ahead of anybody else. Third, we could not ride very
+well, and the thought of falling off in front of our men when they were
+charging daunted us.</p>
+
+<p>The sappers required brains, and we had too great an admiration for the
+infantry to attempt commanding them. Besides, they walked and lived in
+trenches.</p>
+
+<p>Two of us struck upon a corps which combined the advantages of every
+branch of the service. We drew up a list of each other's qualifications
+to throw a sop to modesty, sent in our applications, and waited. At the
+same time we adopted a slight tone of hauteur towards those who were not
+potential officers.</p>
+
+<p>One night after tea "Ginger" brought in the orders. I had become a
+gentleman, and, saying good-bye, I walked down into the village and
+reported myself to the officer commanding the Divisional Cyclists. I was
+no longer a despatch rider but a very junior subaltern.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 272]</span><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a></p>
+
+<p>I had worked with the others for nearly seven months&mdash;with Huggie, who
+liked to be frightened; with George the arch scrounger; with Spuggy, who
+could sing the rarest songs; with Sadders, who is as brave as any man
+alive; with N'Soon, the dashing, of the tender skin; with Fat Boy, who
+loves "sustaining" food and dislikes frost; with Grimers and Cecil, best
+of artificers; with Potters and Orr and Moulders and the Flapper.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot pay them a more sufficient tribute than the tribute of the
+Commander-in-Chief:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Carrying despatches and messages at all hours of the day and night, in
+every kind of weather, and often traversing bad roads blocked with
+transport, they have been conspicuously successful in maintaining an
+extraordinary degree of efficiency in the service of communications....
+No amount of difficulty or danger has ever checked the energy and ardour
+which has distinguished their corps throughout the operations."</p>
+
+
+<h2>FINIS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class='center'>PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.</div>
+
+<div><a name="retreat" id="retreat"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/foldedmap.gif"><img src="./images/foldedmap-tb.gif" alt="LINE OF RETREAT AND ADVANCE" title="LINE OF RETREAT AND ADVANCE" /></a></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This was written before the days of the "Submarine
+Blockade."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> This was written in the middle of October.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> We became bored with the song, and dropped it soon after
+for less printable songs.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The word used in Flanders for a tavern that does not aspire
+to the dignity of "restaurant" or "hotel."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The Bavai-Andregnies-Elouges road.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> I had no map with me. All the maps were in use. Looking
+afterwards at the map which I obtained later in the day, I am unable to
+trace my route with any accuracy. It is certain that the Germans
+temporarily thrust in a wedge between the 13th and 15th Brigades.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A small patrol of cavalry, I should imagine, if the tale I
+heard at Serches be true.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> I do not know who the officer was, and I give the story as
+I wrote it in a letter home&mdash;for what it is worth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> It must have been Guiscard.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> August 29th.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Stray bullets that, fired too high, miss their mark, and
+occasionally hit men well behind the actual firing line.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> For&ecirc;t de Cr&eacute;cy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> I do not pretend for a moment that all these details are
+meticulously accurate. They are what I knew or thought I knew at the
+time this was written.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Curiously enough, months after this was written the author
+was wounded by shrapnel.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The first&mdash;in October and November.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> This is not an unthinking advertisement. After despatch
+riding from August 16 to February 18 my judgment should be worth
+something. I am firmly convinced that if the Government could have
+provided all despatch riders with Blackburnes, the percentage&mdash;at all
+times small&mdash;of messages undelivered owing to mechanical breakdowns or
+the badness of the roads would have been reduced to zero. I have no
+interest in the Blackburne Company beyond a sincere admiration of the
+machine it produces.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The letters were written on the 14th October <i>et seq.</i> The
+censor was kind.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Dorsets, I think.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> I do not say this paragraph is true. It is what I thought
+on 15th October 1914. The weather was depressing.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Optimist!</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> After nine months at the Front&mdash;six and a half months as a
+despatch rider and two and a half months as a cyclist officer&mdash;I have
+decided that the English language has no superlative sufficient to
+describe our infantry.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Here are kindly people.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> French, Flemish, and German slang expression. Done for!</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> An abbreviation for the general in command of the
+Divisional Artillery.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The soldier's contemptuous expression for the inhabitants
+of the civilian world.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> I retired with some haste from Flanders the night after
+the Germans first began to use gas. Militant chemistry may have altered
+the British soldier's convictions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> I have left out the usual monotonous epithet. Any soldier
+can supply it.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> To these may now be added&mdash;St Eloi, Hill 60, the Second
+Battle of Ypres.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> I cannot remember the name of the restaurant. Go to the
+north-east corner of the Square and turn down a lane to your right. It
+is the fourth or fifth house on your right. In B&eacute;thune there is also, of
+course, the big hotel where generals lunch. If you find the company of
+generals a little trying go to the flapper's restaurant.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Company Quartermaster-Sergeant, now a Sergeant-Major.</p></div></div>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+
+<p>Page 56: Comma changed to period in "La Cateau. A good many"</p>
+
+
+<p>Table of Contents: "Chapter X. THE BEGINNING OF WINTER" actually begins on page 198 in the text.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections.
+Scroll your mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures of a Despatch Rider, by W. H. L. Watson
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+</body>
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+Project Gutenberg's Adventures of a Despatch Rider, by W. H. L. Watson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Adventures of a Despatch Rider
+
+Author: W. H. L. Watson
+
+Release Date: October 14, 2005 [EBook #16868]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF A DESPATCH RIDER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Emmy and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Route taken by Fifth Division_]
+
+
+
+Adventures of a Despatch Rider
+
+Adventures of
+A Despatch Rider
+
+BY
+
+CAPTAIN W.H.L. WATSON
+
+_WITH MAPS_
+
+
+William Blackwood and Sons
+
+Edinburgh and London
+
+1915
+
+      _TO_
+_THE PERFECT MOTHER,_
+    _MY OWN._
+
+
+
+
+A LETTER
+
+BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+     _To_ 2nd Lieut. R.B. WHYTE,
+         1st Black Watch,
+           B.E.F.
+
+MY DEAR ROBERT,--
+
+Do you remember how in the old days we used to talk about my first book?
+Of course it was to be an Oxford novel full of clever little
+character-sketches--witty but not unkind: of subtle and pleasurable
+hints at our own adventures, for no one had enjoyed Balliol and the city
+of Oxford so hugely: of catch-words that repeated would bring back the
+thrills and the laughter--_Psych. Anal._ and _Steady, Steady!_ of names
+crammed with delectable memories--the Paviers', Cloda's Lane, and the
+notorious Square and famous Wynd: of acid phrases, beautifully put, that
+would show up once and for all those dear abuses and shams that go to
+make Oxford. It was to surpass all Oxford Novels and bring us all
+eternal fame.
+
+You remember, too, the room? It was stuffy and dingy and the pictures
+were of doubtful taste, but there were things to drink and smoke. The
+imperturbable Ikla would be sitting in his chair pulling at one of his
+impossibly luxurious pipes. You would be snorting in another--and I
+would be holding forth ... but I am starting an Oxford novelette already
+and there is no need. For two slightly senior contemporaries of ours
+have already achieved fame. The hydrangeas have blossomed. "The Home"
+has been destroyed by a Balliol tongue. The flower-girl has died her
+death. The Balliol novels have been written--and my first book is this.
+
+We have not even had time to talk it over properly. I saw you on my
+week's leave in December, but then I had not thought of making a book.
+Finally, after three months in the trenches you came home in August. I
+was in Ireland and you in Scotland, so we met at Warrington just after
+midnight and proceeded to staggering adventures. Shall we ever forget
+that six hours' talk, the mad ride and madder breakfast with old Peter
+M'Ginn, the solitary hotel at Manchester and the rare dash to London?
+But I didn't tell you much about my book.
+
+It is made up principally of letters to my mother and to you. My mother
+showed these letters to Mr Townsend Warner, my old tutor at Harrow, and
+he, who was always my godfather in letters, passed them on until they
+have appeared in the pages of 'Maga.' I have filled in the gaps these
+letters leave with narrative, worked the whole into some sort of
+connected account, and added maps and an index.
+
+This book is not a history, a military treatise, an essay, or a scrap of
+autobiography. It has no more accuracy or literary merit than letters
+usually possess. So I hope you will not judge it too harshly. My only
+object is to try and show as truthfully as I can the part played in this
+monstrous war by a despatch rider during the months from August 1914 to
+February 1915. If that object is gained I am content.
+
+Because it is composed of letters, this book has many faults.
+
+Firstly, I have written a great deal about myself. That is inevitable in
+letters. My mother wanted to hear about me and not about those whom she
+had never met. So do not think my adventures are unique. I assure you
+that if any of the other despatch riders were to publish their letters
+you would find mine by comparison mild indeed. If George now could be
+persuaded ...!
+
+Secondly, I have dwelt at length upon little personal matters. It may
+not interest you to know when I had a pork-chop--though, as you now
+realise, on active service a pork-chop is extremely important--but it
+interested my mother. She liked to know whether I was having good and
+sufficient food, and warm things on my chest and feet, because, after
+all, there was a time when I wanted nothing else.
+
+Thirdly, all letters are censored. This book contains nothing but the
+truth, but not the whole truth. When I described things that were
+actually happening round me, I had to be exceedingly careful--and when,
+as in the first two or three chapters, my letters were written several
+weeks after the events, something was sure to crop up in the meantime
+that unconsciously but definitely altered the memory of experiences....
+
+We have known together two of the people I have mentioned in this
+book--Alec and Gibson. They have both advanced so far that we have lost
+touch with them. I had thought that it would be a great joy to publish a
+first book, but this book is ugly with sorrow. I shall never be able to
+write "Alec and I" again--and he was the sweetest and kindest of my
+friends, a friend of all the world. Never did he meet a man or woman
+that did not love him. The Germans have killed Alec. Perhaps among the
+multitudinous Germans killed there are one or two German Alecs. Yet I am
+still meeting people who think that war is a fine bracing thing for the
+nation, a sort of national week-end at Brighton.
+
+Then there was Gibson, who proved for all time that nobody made a better
+soldier than the young don--and those whose names do not come into this
+book....
+
+Robert, you and I know what to think of this Brighton theory. We are
+only just down from Oxford, and perhaps things strike us a little more
+passionately than they should.
+
+You have seen the agony of war. You have seen those miserable people
+that wander about behind the line like pariah dogs in the streets. You
+know what is behind "Tommy's invincible gaiety." Let us pray together
+for a time when the publishing of a book like this will be regarded with
+fierce shame.
+
+So long and good luck!
+
+                 Ever yours,
+                                   WILLIAM.
+
+     PIRBRIGHT HUTS,
+           1/10/15.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day after I had written this letter the news came to me that Robert
+Whyte had been killed. The letter must stand--I have not the heart to
+write another.
+
+                                            W.H.L.W.
+     PIRBRIGHT HUTS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAP.                             PAGE
+
+   I. ENLISTING                      1
+
+  II. THE JOURNEY TO THE FRONT      12
+
+ III. THE BATTLE OF MONS            26
+
+  IV. THE BATTLE OF LE CATEAU       40
+
+   V. THE GREAT RETREAT             51
+
+  VI. OVER THE MARNE TO THE AISNE   76
+
+ VII. THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE      105
+
+VIII. THE MOVE TO THE NORTH        140
+
+  IX. ROUND LA BASSEE              167
+
+   X. THE BEGINNING OF WINTER      197
+
+  XI. ST JANS CAPPEL               230
+
+ XII. BEHIND THE LINES             253
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF MAPS.
+
+
+                                           PAGE
+
+ROUTE TAKEN BY FIFTH DIVISION      _At beginning_
+
+ROUND MONS                                    25
+
+THE MARNE (LAGNY TO CHATEAU-THIERRY)          87
+
+THE AISNE (SOISSONS TO VAILLY)               104
+
+ROUND LA BASSEE                              166
+
+YPRES TO LA BASSEE                           197
+
+LINE OF RETREAT AND ADVANCE              _At end_
+
+
+
+
+Adventures of A Despatch Rider.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ENLISTING
+
+
+At 6.45 P.M. on Saturday, July 25, 1914, Alec and I determined to take
+part in the Austro-Servian War. I remember the exact minute, because we
+were standing on the "down" platform of Earl's Court Station, waiting
+for the 6.55 through train to South Harrow, and Alec had just remarked
+that we had ten minutes to wait. We had travelled up to London,
+intending to work in the British Museum for our "vivas" at Oxford, but
+in the morning it had been so hot that we had strolled round Bloomsbury,
+smoking our pipes. By lunch-time we had gained such an appetite that we
+did not feel like work in the afternoon. We went to see Elsie Janis.
+
+The evening papers were full of grave prognostications. War between
+Servia and Austria seemed inevitable. Earl's Court Station inspired us
+with the spirit of adventure. We determined to take part, and debated
+whether we should go out as war correspondents or as orderlies in a
+Servian hospital. At home we could talk of nothing else during dinner.
+Ikla, that wisest of all Egyptians, mildly encouraged us, while the
+family smiled.
+
+On Sunday we learned that war had been declared. Ways and means were
+discussed, but our great tennis tournament on Monday, and a dance in the
+evening, left us with a mere background of warlike endeavour. It was
+vaguely determined that when my "viva" was over we should go and see
+people of authority in London....
+
+On the last day of July a few of us met together in Gibson's rooms,
+those neat, white rooms in Balliol that overlook St Giles. Naymier, the
+Pole, was certain that Armageddon was coming. He proved it conclusively
+in the Quad with the aid of large maps and a dissertation on potatoes.
+He also showed us the probable course of the war. We lived in strained
+excitement. Things were too big to grasp. It was just the other day
+that 'The Blue Book,' most respectable of Oxford magazines, had
+published an article showing that a war between Great Britain and
+Germany was almost unthinkable. It had been written by an undergraduate
+who had actually been at a German university. Had the multitudinous
+Anglo-German societies at Oxford worked in vain? The world came crashing
+round our ears. Naymier was urgent for an Oxford or a Balliol Legion--I
+do not remember which--but we could not take him seriously. Two of us
+decided that we were physical cowards, and would not under any
+circumstances enlist. The flower of Oxford was too valuable to be used
+as cannon-fodder.
+
+The days passed like weeks. Our minds were hot and confused. It seemed
+that England must come in. On the afternoon of the fourth of August I
+travelled up to London. At a certain club in St James's there was little
+hope. I walked down Pall Mall. In Trafalgar Square a vast, serious crowd
+was anxiously waiting for news. In Whitehall Belgians were doing their
+best to rouse the mob. Beflagged cars full of wildly gesticulating
+Belgians were driving rapidly up and down. Belgians were haranguing
+little groups of men. Everybody remained quiet but perturbed.
+
+War was a certainty. I did not wish to be a spectator of the scenes
+that would accompany its declaration, so I went home. All the night in
+my dreams I saw the quiet, perturbed crowds.
+
+War was declared. All those of us who were at Balliol together
+telephoned to one another so that we might enlist together. Physical
+coward or no physical coward--it obviously had to be done. Teddy and
+Alec were going into the London Scottish. Early in the morning I started
+for London to join them, but on the way up I read the paragraph in which
+the War Office appealed for motor-cyclists. So I went straight to
+Scotland Yard. There I was taken up to a large room full of benches
+crammed with all sorts and conditions of men. The old fellow on my right
+was a sign-writer. On my left was a racing motor-cyclist. We waited for
+hours. Frightened-looking men were sworn in and one phenomenally grave
+small boy. Later I should have said that a really fine stamp of man was
+enlisting. Then they seemed to me a shabby crew.
+
+At last we were sent downstairs, and told to strip and array ourselves
+in moderately dirty blue dressing-gowns. Away from the formality of the
+other room we sang little songs, and made the worst jokes in the
+world--being continually interrupted by an irritable sergeant, whom we
+called "dearie." One or two men were feverishly arguing whether certain
+physical deficiencies would be passed. Nobody said a word of his reason
+for enlisting except the sign-writer, whose wages had been low.
+
+The racing motor-cyclist and I were passed one after another, and,
+receiving warrants, we travelled down to Fulham. Our names, addresses,
+and qualifications were written down. To my overwhelming joy I was
+marked as "very suitable." I went to Great Portland Street, arranged to
+buy a motor-cycle, and returned home. That evening I received a telegram
+from Oxford advising me to go down to Chatham.
+
+I started off soon after breakfast, and suffered three punctures. The
+mending of them put despatch-riding in an unhealthy light. At Rochester
+I picked up Wallace and Marshall of my college, and together we went to
+the appointed place. There we found twenty or thirty enlisted or
+unenlisted. I had come only to make inquiries, but I was carried away.
+After a series of waits I was medically examined and passed. At 5.45
+P.M. I kissed the Book, and in two minutes I became a corporal in the
+Royal Engineers. During the ceremony my chief sensation was one of
+thoroughgoing panic.
+
+In the morning four of us, who were linguists, were packed off to the
+War Office. We spent the journey in picturing all the ways we might be
+killed, until, by the time we reached Victoria, there was not a single
+one of us who would not have given anything to un-enlist. The War Office
+rejected us on the plea that they had as many Intelligence Officers as
+they wanted. So we returned glumly.
+
+The next few days we were drilled, lectured, and given our kit. We began
+to know each other, and make friends. Finally, several of us, who wanted
+to go out together, managed by slight misstatements to be put into one
+batch. We were chosen to join the 5th Division. The Major in command
+told us--to our great relief--that the Fifth would not form part of the
+first Expeditionary Force.
+
+I remember Chatham as a place of heat, intolerable dirt, and a bad sore
+throat. There we made our first acquaintance with the army, which we
+undergraduates had derided as a crowd of slavish wastrels and
+empty-headed slackers. We met with tact and courtesy from the mercenary.
+A sergeant of the Sappers we discovered to be as fine a type of man as
+any in the wide earth. And we marvelled, too, at the smoothness of
+organisation, the lack of confusing hurry....
+
+We were to start early on Monday morning. My mother and sister rushed
+down to Chatham, and my sister has urgently requested me to mention in
+"the book" that she carried, with much labour, a large and heavy pair of
+ski-ing boots. Most of the others had enlisted like myself in a hurry.
+They did not see "their people" until December.
+
+All of us were made to write our names in the visitors' book, for, as
+the waiter said--
+
+"They ain't nobodies now, but in these 'ere times yer never knows what
+they may be."
+
+Then, when we had gone in an ear-breaking splutter of exhausts, he
+turned to comfort my mother--
+
+"Pore young fellers! Pore young fellers! I wonder if any of 'em will
+return."
+
+That damp chilly morning I was very sleepy and rather frightened at the
+new things I was going to do. I imagined war as a desperate continuous
+series of battles, in which I should ride along the trenches
+picturesquely haloed with bursting shell, varied by innumerable
+encounters with Uhlans, or solitary forest rides and immense tiring
+treks over deserted country to distant armies. I wasn't quite sure I
+liked the idea of it all. But the sharp morning air, the interest in
+training a new motor-cycle in the way it should go, the unexpected
+popping-up and grotesque salutes of wee gnome-like Boy Scouts, soon
+made me forget the war. A series of the kind of little breakdowns you
+always have in a collection of new bikes delayed us considerably, and
+only a race over greasy setts through the southern suburbs, over
+Waterloo Bridge and across the Strand, brought us to Euston just as the
+boat-train was timed to start. In the importance of our new uniforms we
+stopped it, of course, and rode joyfully from one end of the platform to
+the other, much to the agitation of the guard, while I posed
+delightfully against a bookstall to be photographed by a patriotic
+governess.
+
+Very grimy we sat down to a marvellous breakfast, and passed the time
+reading magazines and discussing the length of the war. We put it at
+from three to six weeks. At Holyhead we carefully took our bikes aboard,
+and settled down to a cold voyage. We were all a trifle apprehensive at
+our lack of escort, for then, you will remember, it had not yet been
+proved how innocuous the German fleet is in our own seas.[1]
+
+Ireland was a disappointment. Everybody was dirty and unfriendly,
+staring at us with hostile eyes. Add Dublin grease, which beats the
+Belgian, and a crusty garage proprietor who only after persuasion
+supplied us with petrol, and you may be sure we were glad to see the
+last of it. The road to Carlow was bad and bumpy. But the sunset was
+fine, and we liked the little low Irish cottages in the twilight. When
+it was quite dark we stopped at a town with a hill in it. One of our men
+had a brick thrown at him as he rode in, and when we came to the inn we
+didn't get a gracious word, and decided it was more pleasant not to be a
+soldier in Ireland. The daughter of the house was pretty and passably
+clean, but it was very grimly that she had led me through an immense
+gaudy drawing-room disconsolate in dust wrappings, to a little room
+where we could wash. She gave us an exiguous meal at an extortionate
+charge, and refused to put more than two of us up; so, on the advice of
+two gallivanting lancers who had escaped from the Curragh for some
+supper, we called in the aid of the police, and were billeted
+magnificently on the village.
+
+A moderate breakfast at an unearthly hour, a trouble with the starting
+up of our bikes, and we were off again. It was about nine when we turned
+into Carlow Barracks.
+
+The company sighed with relief on seeing us. We completed the
+establishment on mobilisation. Our two "artificers," Cecil and Grimers,
+had already arrived. We were overjoyed to see them. We realised that
+what they did not know about motor-cycles was not worth knowing, and we
+had suspected at Chatham what we found afterwards to be true, that no
+one could have chosen for us pleasanter comrades or more reliable
+workers.
+
+A fine breakfast was soon prepared for us and we begun looking round.
+The position should have been a little difficult--a dozen or so 'Varsity
+men, very fresh from their respective universities, thrown as corporals
+at the head of a company of professional soldiers. We were determined
+that, whatever vices we might have, we should not be accused of "swank."
+The sergeants, after a trifle of preliminary stiffness, treated us with
+fatherly kindness, and did all they could to make us comfortable and
+teach us what we wanted to learn.
+
+Carlow was a fascinating little town. The National Volunteers still
+drilled just behind the barracks. It was not wise to refer to the
+Borderers or to Ulster, but the war had made all the difference in the
+world. We were to represent Carlow in the Great War. Right through the
+winter Carlow never forgot us. They sent us comforts and cigarettes and
+Christmas Puddings. When the 5th Signal Company returns, Carlow will go
+mad.
+
+My first "official" ride was to Dublin. It rained most of the way there
+and all the way back, but a glow of patriotism kept me warm. In Dublin I
+went into a little public-house for some beer and bread and cheese. The
+landlord told me that though he wasn't exactly a lover of soldiers,
+things had changed now. On my return I was given lunch in the Officers'
+Mess, for nobody could consider their men more than the officers of our
+company.
+
+The next day we were inoculated. At the time we would much rather have
+risked typhoid. We did not object to the discomfort, though two of us
+nearly fainted on parade the following morning--it was streamingly
+hot--but our farewell dinner was absolutely spoilt. Bottles of the best
+Moselle Carlow could produce were left untouched. Songs broke down in
+curses. It was tragic.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] This was written before the days of the "Submarine Blockade."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE JOURNEY TO THE FRONT
+
+
+We made a triumphant departure from Carlow, preceded down to the station
+by the band of the N.V. We were told off to prevent anybody entering the
+station, but all the men entered magnificently, saying they were
+volunteers, and the women and children rushed us with the victorious
+cry, "We've downed the p'lice." We steamed out of the station while the
+band played "Come back to Erin" and "God save Ireland," and made an
+interminable journey to Dublin. At some of the villages they cheered, at
+others they looked at us glumly. But the back streets of Dublin were
+patriotic enough, and at the docks, which we reached just after dark, a
+small, tremendously enthusiastic crowd was gathered to see us off.
+
+They sang songs and cheered, and cheered and sang songs. "I can
+generally bear the separation, but I don't like the leave-taking." The
+boat would not go off. The crowd on the boat and the crowd on the wharf
+made patriotic noises until they were hoarse. At midnight our supporters
+had nearly all gone away. We who had seen our motor-cycles carefully
+hoisted on board ate the buns and apples provided by "Friends in Dublin"
+and chatted. A young gunner told me of all his amours, and they were
+very numerous. Still--
+
+     For my uncle _Toby's_ amours running all the way in my head,
+     they had the same effect upon me as if they had been my
+     own--I was in the most perfect state of bounty and  goodwill--
+
+So I set about finding a place for sleep.
+
+The whole of the Divisional Headquarters Staff, with all their horses,
+were on the _Archimedes_, and we were so packed that when I tried to
+find a place to sleep I discovered there was not an inch of space left
+on the deck, so I passed an uncomfortable night on top of some
+excruciatingly hard ropes.
+
+We cast off about one in the morning. The night was horribly cold, and a
+slow dawn was never more welcomed. But day brought a new horror. The sun
+poured down on us, and the smell from the horses packed closely below
+was almost unbearable; while, worst of all, we had to go below to wash
+and to draw our rations.
+
+Then I was first introduced to bully. The first tin tastes delicious and
+fills you rapidly. You never actually grow to dislike it, and many times
+when extra hungry I have longed for an extra tin. But when you have
+lived on bully for three months (we have not been served out with fresh
+meat more than a dozen times altogether),[2] how you long for any little
+luxuries to vary the monotony of your food!
+
+On the morning of the third day we passed a French destroyer with a
+small prize in tow, and rejoiced greatly, and towards evening we dropped
+anchor off Havre. On either side of the narrow entrance to the docks
+there were cheering crowds, and we cheered back, thrilled, occasionally
+breaking into the soldier's anthem, "It's a long, long way to
+Tipperary."[3]
+
+We disembarked at a secluded wharf, and after waiting about for a couple
+of hours or so--we had not then learned to wait--we were marched off to
+a huge dim warehouse, where we were given gallons of the most delicious
+hot coffee, and bought scrumptious little cakes.
+
+It was now quite dark, and, for what seemed whole nights, we sat
+wearily waiting while the horses were taken off the transport. We made
+one vain dash for our quarters, but found only another enormous
+warehouse, strangely lit, full of clattering waggons and restive horses.
+We watched with wonder a battery clank out into the night, and then
+returned sleepily to the wharf-side. Very late we found where we were to
+sleep, a gigantic series of wool warehouses. The warehouses were full of
+wool and the wool was full of fleas. We were very miserable, and a
+little bread and wine we managed to get hold of hardly cheered us at
+all. I feared the fleas, and spread a waterproof sheet on the bare
+stones outside. I thought I should not get a wink of sleep on such a
+Jacobean resting-place, but, as a matter of fact, I slept like a top,
+and woke in the morning without even an ache. But those who had risked
+the wool----!
+
+We breakfasted off the strong, sweet tea that I have grown to like so
+much, and some bread, butter, and chocolate we bought off a smiling old
+woman at the warehouse gates. Later in the morning we were allowed into
+the town. First, a couple of us went into a cafe to have a drink, and
+when we came out we found our motor-cycles garlanded with flowers by two
+admiring flappers. Everywhere we went we were the gods of a very proper
+worship, though the shopkeepers in their admiration did not forget to
+charge. We spent a long, lazy day in lounging through the town, eating a
+lot of little meals and in visiting the public baths--the last bath I
+was to have, if I had only known it, for a month. A cheery, little,
+bustling town Havre seemed to us, basking in a bright sunshine, and the
+hopes of our early overwhelming victory. We all stalked about,
+prospective conquerors, and talked fluently of the many defects of the
+German army.
+
+Orders came in the afternoon that we were to move that night. I sat up
+until twelve, and gained as my reward some excellent hot tea and a bit
+of rather tough steak. At twelve everybody was woken up and the company
+got ready to move. We motor-cyclists were sent off to the station.
+Foolishly I went by myself. Just outside what I thought was the station
+I ran out of petrol. I walked to the station and waited for the others.
+They did not come. I searched the station, but found nothing except a
+cavalry brigade entraining. I rushed about feverishly. There was no one
+I knew, no one who had heard anything of my company. Then I grew
+horribly frightened that I should be left behind. I pelted back to the
+old warehouses, but found everybody had left two hours ago. I thought
+the company must surely have gone by now, and started in my desperation
+asking everybody I knew if they had seen anything of the company.
+Luckily I came across an entraining officer, who told me that the
+company were entraining at "Point Six-Hangar de Laine,"--three miles
+away. I simply ran there, asking my way of surly, sleepy sentries,
+tripping over ropes, nearly falling into docks.
+
+I found the Signal Company. There was not a sign of our train. So
+Johnson took me on his carrier back to the station I had searched in
+such fear. We found the motor-cycle, Johnson gave me some petrol, and we
+returned to Point Six. It was dawn when the old train at last rumbled
+and squeaked into the siding.
+
+I do not know how long we took to entrain, I was so sleepy. But the sun
+was just rising when the little trumpet shrilled, the long train creaked
+over the points, and we woke for a moment to murmur--By Jove, we're off
+now,--and I whispered thankfully to myself--Thank heaven I found them at
+last.
+
+We were lucky enough to be only six in our compartment, but, as you
+know, in a French IIIme there is very little room, while the seats are
+fiercely hard. And we had not yet been served out with blankets. Still,
+we had to stick it for twenty-four hours. Luckily the train stopped at
+every station of any importance, so, taking the law into our own hands,
+we got out and stretched our legs at every opportunity.
+
+We travelled _via_ Rouen and Amiens to Landrecies. The Signal Company
+had a train to itself. Gradually we woke up to find ourselves travelling
+through extraordinarily pretty country and cheering crowds. At each
+level-crossing the cure was there to bless us. If we did not stop the
+people threw in fruit, which we vainly endeavoured to catch. A halt, and
+they were round us, beseeching us for souvenirs, loading us with fruit,
+and making us feel that it was a fine thing to fight in a friendly
+country.
+
+At Rouen we drew up at a siding, and sent porters scurrying for bread
+and butter and beer, while we loaded up from women who came down to the
+train with all sorts of delicious little cakes and sweets. We stopped,
+and then rumbled slowly towards Amiens. At St Roche we first saw
+wounded, and heard, I do not know with what truth, that four aviators
+had been killed, and that our General, Grierson, had died of heart
+failure. At Ham they measured me against a lamp-post, and ceremoniously
+marked the place. The next time I passed through Ham I had no time to
+look for the mark! It began to grow dark, and the trees standing out
+against the sunset reminded me of our two lines of trees at home. We
+went slowly over bridges, and looked fearfully from our windows for
+bursting shells. Soon we fell asleep, and were wakened about midnight by
+shouted orders. We had arrived at Landrecies, near enough the Frontier
+to excite us.
+
+I wonder if you realise at home what the Frontier meant to us at first?
+We conceived it as a thing guarded everywhere by intermittent patrols of
+men staring carefully towards Germany and Belgium in the darkness, a
+thing to be defended at all costs, at all times, to be crossed with
+triumph and recrossed with shame. We did not understand what an
+enormous, incredible thing modern war was--how it cared nothing for
+frontiers, or nations, or people.
+
+Very wearily we unloaded our motor bicycles and walked to the barracks,
+where we put down our kit and literally feel asleep, to be wakened for
+fatigue work.
+
+We rose at dawn, and had some coffee at a little _estaminet_,[4] where a
+middle-aged dame, horribly arch, cleaned my canteen for me, "pour
+l'amour de toi." We managed an excellent breakfast of bacon and eggs
+before establishing the Signal Office at the barracks. A few of us rode
+off to keep touch with the various brigades that were billeted round.
+The rest of us spent the morning across the road at an inn drinking much
+wine-and-water and planning out the war on a forty-year-old map.
+
+In the afternoon I went out with two others to prospect some roads, very
+importantly. We were rather annoyed to lose our way out of the town, and
+were very short with some inquisitive small boys who stood looking over
+our shoulders as we squatted on the grass by the wayside studying our
+maps.
+
+We had some tea at a mad village called Hecq. All the inhabitants were
+old, ugly, smelly, and dirty; and they crowded round us as we devoured a
+magnificent omelette, endeavouring to incite us to do all sorts of
+things to the German women if ever we reached Germany. We returned home
+in the late afternoon to hear rumours of an advance next day.
+
+Three of us wandered into the Square to have a drink. There I first
+tried a new pipe that had been given me. The one pipe I brought with me
+I had dropped out of the train between Amiens and Landrecies. It had
+been quite a little tragedy, as it was a pipe for which I had a great
+affection. It had been my companion in Switzerland and Paris.
+
+Coming back from the Square I came across an excited crowd. It appears
+that an inoffensive, rather buxom-looking woman had been walking round
+the Square when one of her breasts cooed and flew away. We shot three
+spies at Landrecies.
+
+I hung round the Signal Office, nervous and excited, for "a run." The
+night was alive with the tramp of troops and the rumble of guns. The old
+108th passed by--huge good-natured guns, each drawn by eight gigantic
+plough-horses. I wonder if you can understand--the thrilling excitement
+of waiting and listening by night in a town full of troops.
+
+At midnight I took my first despatch. It was a dark, starless night;
+very misty on the road. From the brigade I was sent on to an
+ambulance--an unpleasant ride, because, apart from the mist and the
+darkness, I was stopped every few yards by sentries of the West Kents, a
+regiment which has now about the best reputation of any battalion out
+here. I returned in time to snatch a couple of hours of sleep before we
+started at dawn for Belgium.
+
+When the Division moves we ride either with the column or go in advance
+to the halting-place. That morning we rode with the column, which meant
+riding three-quarters of a mile or so and then waiting for the
+main-guard to come up,--an extraordinarily tiring method of getting
+along.
+
+The day (August 21) was very hot indeed, and the troops who had not yet
+got their marching feet suffered terribly, even though the people by the
+wayside brought out fruit and eggs and drinks. There was murmuring when
+some officers refused to allow their men to accept these gifts. But a
+start had to be made some time, for promiscuous drinks do not increase
+marching efficiency. We, of course, could do pretty well what we liked.
+A little coffee early in the morning, and then anything we cared to ask
+for. Most of us in the evening discovered, unpleasantly enough,
+forgotten pears in unthought-of pockets.
+
+About 1.30 we neared Bavai, and I was sent on to find out about
+billeting arrangements, but by the time they were completed the rest had
+arrived.
+
+For a long time we were hutted in the Square. Spuggy found a "friend,"
+and together we obtained a good wash. The people were vociferously
+enthusiastic. Even the chemist gave us some "salts" free of charge.
+
+My first ride from Bavai began with a failure, as, owing to belt-slip, I
+endeavoured vainly to start for half an hour (or so it seemed) in the
+midst of an interested but sympathetic populace. A smart change saw me
+tearing along the road to meet with a narrow escape from untimely death
+in the form of a car, which I tried to pass on the wrong side. In the
+evening we received our first batch of pay, and dining magnificently at
+a hotel, took tearful leave of Huggie and Spuggy. They had been chosen,
+they said, to make a wild dash through to Liege. We speculated darkly on
+their probable fate. In the morning we learned that we had been hoaxed,
+and used suitable language.
+
+We slept uncomfortably on straw in a back yard, and rose again just
+before dawn. We breakfasted hastily at a cafe, and were off just as the
+sun had risen.
+
+Our day's march was to Dour, in Belgium, and for us a bad day's march it
+was. My job was to keep touch with the 14th Brigade, which was advancing
+along a parallel road to the west.[5] That meant riding four or five
+miles across rough country roads, endeavouring to time myself so as to
+reach the 14th column just when the S.O. was passing, then back again to
+the Division, riding up and down the column until I found our captain.
+In the course of my riding that day I knocked down "a civvy" in Dour,
+and bent a foot-rest endeavouring to avoid a major, but that was all in
+the day's work.
+
+The Signal Office was first established patriarchally with a table by
+the roadside, and thence I made my last journey that day to the 14th. I
+found them in a village under the most embarrassing attentions. As for
+myself, while I was waiting, a cure photographed me, a woman rushed out
+and washed my face, and children crowded up to me, presenting me with
+chocolate and cigars, fruit and eggs, until my haversack was practically
+bursting.
+
+When I returned I found the S.O. had shifted to the station of Dour. We
+were given the waiting-room, which we made comfortable with straw.
+Opposite the station was a hotel where the Staff lived. It was managed
+by a curiously upright old man in a threadbare frock-coat, bright check
+trousers, and carpet slippers. Nadine, his pretty daughter, was
+tremulously eager to make us comfortable, and the two days we were at
+Dour we hung round the hotel, sandwiching omelettes and drink between
+our despatches.
+
+[Illustration: ROUND MONS]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] This was written in the middle of October.
+
+[3] We became bored with the song, and dropped it soon after for less
+printable songs.
+
+[4] The word used in Flanders for a tavern that does not aspire to the
+dignity of "restaurant" or "hotel."
+
+[5] The Bavai-Andregnies-Elouges road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE BATTLE OF MONS
+
+
+We knew nothing of what was going on. There was a rumour that Namur had
+fallen, and I heard certain officers say we had advanced dangerously
+far. The cavalry was on our left and the Third Division on our right.
+Beyond the Third Division we had heard of the First Corps, but nothing
+of the French. We were left, to the best of our knowledge, a tenuous
+bulwark against the German hosts.
+
+The 14th Brigade had advanced by the Andregnies road to Elouges and the
+Canal. The 13th was our right brigade, and the 15th, at first in
+reserve, extended our line on the second day to Frameries. The Cyclists
+were reconnoitring north of the Canal.
+
+The roads round Dour were of the very worst _pave_, and, if this were
+not enough, the few maps we had between us were useless. The villages of
+Waasmes, Paturages, and Frameries were in the midst of such a network
+of roads that the map could not possibly be clear. If the country had
+been flat, we might at least have found our way by landmarks. It was
+not. The roads wandered round great slag-heaps, lost themselves in
+little valleys, ran into pits and groups of buildings. Each one tried to
+be exactly like all its fellows. Without a map to get from Elouges to
+Frameries was like asking an American to make his way from Richmond Park
+to Denmark Hill.
+
+About ten o'clock on the morning of August 23rd I was sent out to find
+General Gleichen, who was reported somewhere near Waasmes. I went over
+nightmare roads, uneven cobbles with great pits in them. I found him,
+and was told by him to tell the General that the position was
+unfortunate owing to a weak salient. We had already heard guns, but on
+my way back I heard a distant crash, and looked round to find that a
+shell had burst half a mile away on a slag-heap, between Dour and
+myself. With my heart thumping against my ribs I opened the throttle,
+until I was jumping at 40 m.p.h. from cobble to cobble. Then, realising
+that I was in far greater danger of breaking my neck than of being shot,
+I pulled myself together and slowed down to proceed sedately home.
+
+The second time I went out to General Gleichen I found him a little
+farther back from his former position. This time he was on the railway.
+While I was waiting for a reply we had an excellent view of German guns
+endeavouring to bring down one of our aeroplanes. So little did we know
+of aeroplanes then, that the General was persuaded by his brigade-major
+to step back into shelter from the falling bits, and we all stared
+anxiously skywards, expecting every moment that our devoted aviator
+would be hit.
+
+That evening Huggie and I rode back to Bavai and beyond in search of an
+errant ammunition column. Eventually we found it and brought news of it
+back to H.Q. I shall never forget the captain reading my despatch by the
+light of my lamp, the waggons guarded by Dorsets with fixed bayonets
+appearing to disappear shadowy in the darkness. We showed the captain a
+short-cut that avoided Bavai, then left him. His horses were tired, but
+he was forced to push them on another ten miles to Dour. We got back at
+10, and found Nadine weeping. We questioned her, but she would not tell
+us why.
+
+There was a great battle very early the next morning, a running-about
+and set, anxious faces. We were all sent off in rapid succession. I was
+up early and managed to get a wash at the station-master's house, his
+wife providing me with coffee, which, much to my discomfiture, she
+liberally dosed with rum. At 6.30 Johnson started on a message to the
+15th Brigade. We never saw him again. At 9.15 three despatch riders who
+had gone to the 15th, George, Johnson, and Grimers, had not returned. I
+was sent. Two miles out I met George with Grimers' despatches. Neither
+of them had been able to find the 15th. I took the despatches and sent
+George back to report. I went down a road, which I calculated ought to
+bring me somewhere on the left of the 15th, who were supposed to be
+somewhere between Paturages and Frameries. There were two villages on
+hills, one on each side. I struck into the north end of the village on
+my left; there was no road to the one on my right.[6] I came across a
+lot of disheartened stragglers retreating up the hill. I went a little
+farther and saw our own firing line a quarter of a mile ahead. There was
+a bit of shrapnel flying about, but not much. I struck back up the hill
+and came upon a crowd of fugitive infantry men, all belonging to the
+13th Brigade. At last I found General Cuthbert, the Brigadier of the
+13th, sitting calmly on his horse watching the men pass. I asked him
+where the 15th was. He did not know, but told me significantly that our
+rallying-point was Athis.
+
+I rode a little farther, and came upon his signal officer. He stopped me
+and gave me a verbal message to the General, telling me that the 15th
+appeared to be cut off. As I had a verbal message to take back there was
+no need for me to go farther with my despatches, which, as it appeared
+later, was just as well. I sprinted back to Dour, picking my way through
+a straggling column of men sullenly retreating. At the station I found
+everybody packing up. The General received my message without a word,
+except one of thanks.
+
+     The right flank of the 13th has been badly turned.
+
+      Most of our officers have been killed.
+
+      Some companies of the K.O.S.B. are endeavouring to cover
+     our retreat.
+
+We viciously smashed all the telegraph instruments in the office and cut
+all the wires. It took me some time to pack up my kit and tie it on my
+carrier. When I had finished, everybody had gone. I could hear their
+horses clattering up the street. Across the way Nadine stood weeping. A
+few women with glazed, resigned eyes, stood listlessly round her.
+Behind me, I heard the first shell crash dully into the far end of the
+town. It seemed to me I could not just go off. So I went across to
+Nadine and muttered "Nous reviendrons, Mademoiselle." But she would not
+look at me, so I jumped on my bicycle, and with a last glance round at
+the wrecked, deserted station, I rode off, shouting to encourage more
+myself than the others, "Ca va bien."
+
+I caught up the General, and passed him to ride on ahead of the Signal
+Company. Never before had I so wished my engine to turn more slowly. It
+seemed a shame that we motor-cyclists should head the retreat of our
+little column. I could not understand how the men could laugh and joke.
+It was blasphemous. They ought to be cursing with angry faces,--at the
+least, to be grave and sorrowful.
+
+I was told that Divisional Headquarters would be established at
+Villers-Pol, a little country village about ten miles west of Bavai and
+eight miles south-east of Valenciennes. I rode to St Waast, a few miles
+out of Bavai, and, finding there a cavalry colonel (of the 2nd Life
+Guards, I think), gave him all the news. I hurried on to Jenlain,
+thinking I might be of some use to the troops on our right flank, but
+Jenlain was peaceful and empty. So I cut across low rolling downs to
+Villers-Pol. There was nobody there when I arrived. The sun was shining
+very brightly. Old women were sleeping at the doors; children were
+playing lazily on the road. Soon one or two motor-cyclists dribbled in,
+and about an hour later a section of the Signal Company arrived after a
+risky dash along country lanes. They outspanned, and we, as always, made
+for the inn.
+
+There was a mother in the big room. She was a handsome little woman of
+about twenty-four. Her husband was at the war. She asked me why we had
+come to Villers-Pol. I said we were retreating a little--pour attaquer
+le mieux--un mouvement strategique. She wept bitterly and loudly, "Ah,
+my baby, what will they do to us? They will kill you, and they will
+ill-treat me so that never again shall I be able to look my husband in
+the eyes--his brave eyes; but now perhaps they are closed in death!"
+There was an older, harsh-featured woman who rated the mother for her
+silliness, and, while we ate our omelette, the room was filled with the
+clamour of them until a dog outside began to howl. Then the mother went
+and sat down in a chair by the fire and stopped crying, but every now
+and then moaned and clasped her baby strongly to her breast, murmuring,
+"My poor baby, my poor baby, what shall we do?"
+
+We lounged about the place until a cavalry brigade came through. The
+General commandeered me to find his transport. This I did, and on the
+way back waited for the brigade to pass. Then for the first time I saw
+that many riderless horses were being led, that some of the horses and
+many of the men were wounded, and that one regiment of lancers was
+pathetically small. It was the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, that had charged the
+enemy's guns, to find them protected by barbed wire.
+
+Sick at heart I rode back into Villers-Pol, and found the Signal Company
+hastily harnessing up. Headquarters had been compelled to go farther
+back still--to St Waast, and there was nobody, so far as we knew,
+between us and the Germans. The order caught George with his gear down.
+We made a marvellously rapid repair, then went off at the trot. A mile
+out, and I was sent back to pick up our quartermaster and three others
+who were supposed to have been left behind. It was now quite dark. In
+the village I could not find our men, but discovered a field ambulance
+that did not know what to do. Their horses were dead tired, but I
+advised them strongly to get on. They took my advice, and I heard at
+Serches that they left Villers-Pol as the Germans[7] entered it. They
+were pursued, but somehow got away in the darkness.
+
+I went on, and at some cross-roads in a black forest came across a
+regiment of hussars. I told them where their B.H.Q. was, and their
+Colonel muttered resignedly,
+
+"It's a long way, but we shall never get our wounded horses there
+to-morrow." I put two more companies right, then came across a little
+body of men who were vainly trying to get a horse attached to a S.A.A.
+limber out of the ditch. It was a pitch-black night, and they were
+bravely endeavouring to do it without catching a glimpse of the horse. I
+gave them the benefit of my lamp until they had got the brute out. Two
+more bodies of stragglers I directed, and then pushed on rapidly to St
+Waast, where I found all the other motor-cyclists safe except Johnson.
+Two had come on carts, having been compelled to abandon their
+motor-cycles.
+
+George had been attached to the 14th. He had gone with them to the
+canal, and had been left there with the Cornwalls when the 14th had
+retired to its second position. At last nobody remained with him except
+a section. They were together in a hut, and outside he could hear the
+bullets singing. He noticed some queer-looking explosives in a corner,
+and asked what they were for. He was told they were to blow up the
+bridge over the canal, so decided it was time for him to quit, and did
+so with some rapidity under a considerable rifle fire. Then he was sent
+up to the Manchesters, who were holding a ready-made trench across the
+main road. As he rode up he tells me men shouted at him, "Don't go that
+way, it's dangerous," until he grew quite frightened; but he managed to
+get to the trench all right, slipped in, and was shown how to crawl
+along until he reached the colonel.
+
+N'Soon and Sadders were with the 13th. On the Sunday night they had to
+march to a new position more towards their right. The Signal Section
+went astray and remained silently on a byroad while their officer
+reconnoitred. On the main road between them and their lines were some
+lights rapidly moving--Germans in armoured motor-cars. They successfully
+rejoined, but in the morning there was something of a collision, and
+Sadders' bicycle was finished. He got hold of a push-bike alongside the
+waggons for some distance, finishing up on a limber.
+
+Spuggy was sent up to the trenches in the morning. He was under heavy
+shell fire when his engine seized up. His brigade was retreating, and he
+was in the rear of it, so, leaving his bicycle, he took to his heels,
+and with the Germans in sight ran till he caught up a waggon. He
+clambered on, and so came into St Waast.
+
+I had not been in many minutes when I was sent off to our Army H.Q. at
+Bavai. It was a miserable ride. I was very tired, the road was full of
+transport, and my lamp would not give more than a feeble glimmer.
+
+I got to bed at 1 A.M. About 3.30 (on August 24) I was called and
+detailed to remain with the rear-guard. First I was sent off to find the
+exact position of various bodies posted on roads to stem the German
+advance. At one spot I just missed a shell-trap. A few minutes after I
+had left, some of the Manchesters, together with a body of the D.
+Cyclists who were stationed three miles or so out of St Waast, were
+attacked by a body of Jaegers, who appeared on a hill opposite.
+Foolishly they disclosed their position by opening rifle fire. In a few
+minutes the Jaegers went, and to our utter discomfiture a couple of
+field-guns appeared and fired point-blank at 750 yards. Luckily the
+range was not very exact, and only a few were wounded--those who retired
+directly backwards instead of transversely out of the shells' direction.
+
+The H.Q. of the rear-guard left St Waast about 5.30. It was cold and
+chilly. What happened I do not quite know. All I remember was that at a
+given order a battery would gallop off the road into action against an
+enemy we could not see. So to Bavai, where I was sent off with an
+important despatch for D.H.Q. I had to ride past the column, and
+scarcely had I gone half a mile when my back tyre burst. There was no
+time to repair it, so on I bumped, slipping all over the road. At
+D.H.Q., which of course was on the road, I borrowed some one else's
+bicycle and rode back by another road. On the way I came across Huggie
+filling up from an abandoned motor-lorry. I did likewise, and then tore
+into Bavai. A shell or two was bursting over the town, and I was nearly
+slaughtered by some infantrymen, who thought they were firing at an
+aeroplane. Dodging their bullets, I left the town, and eventually caught
+up the H.Q. of the rear-guard.
+
+It was now about 10.30. Until five the troops tramped on, in a scorching
+sun, on roads covered with clouds of dust. And most pitiful of all,
+between the rear-guard and the main body shuffled the wounded; for we
+had been forced to evacuate our hospital at Bavai. Our men were mad at
+retreating. The Germans had advanced on them in the closest order. Each
+fellow firmly believed he had killed fifty, and was perfectly certain
+we could have held our line to the crack of doom. They trudged and
+trudged. The women, who had cheerily given us everything a few days
+before, now with anxious faces timorously offered us water and fruit.
+
+Great ox-waggons full of refugees, all in their best clothes, came in
+from side-roads. None of them were allowed on the roads we were
+retreating along, so I suppose they were pushed across the German front
+until they fell into the Germans' hands.
+
+For us it was column-riding the whole day--half a mile or so, and then a
+halt,--heart-breaking work.
+
+I was riding along more or less by myself in a gap that had been left in
+the column. A cure stopped me. He was a very tall and very thin young
+man with a hasty, frightened manner. Behind him was a flock of
+panic-stricken, chattering old women. He asked me if there was any
+danger. Not that he was afraid, he said, but just to satisfy his people.
+I answered that none of them need trouble to move. I was too ashamed to
+say we were retreating, and I had an eye on the congestion of the roads.
+I have sometimes wondered what that tall, thin cure, with the sallow
+face and the frightened eyes, said about me when, not twelve hours
+later, the German advance-guard triumphantly defiled before him.
+
+Late in the afternoon we passed through Le Cateau, a bright little town,
+and came to the village of Reumont, where we were billeted in a large
+barn.
+
+We were all very confident that evening. We heard that we were holding a
+finely entrenched position, and the General made a speech--I did not
+hear it--in which he told us that there had been a great Russian
+success, and that in the battle of the morrow a victory for us would
+smash the Germans once and for all. But our captain was more
+pessimistic. He thought we should suffer a great disaster. Doubting, we
+snuggled down in the straw, and went soundly to sleep.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] I had no map with me. All the maps were in use. Looking afterwards
+at the map which I obtained later in the day, I am unable to trace my
+route with any accuracy. It is certain that the Germans temporarily
+thrust in a wedge between the 13th and 15th Brigades.
+
+[7] A small patrol of cavalry, I should imagine, if the tale I heard at
+Serches be true.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE BATTLE OF LE CATEAU
+
+
+The principal thing about Le Cateau is that the soldiers pronounce it to
+rhyme with Waterloo--Leacatoo--and all firmly believe that if the French
+cavalry had come up to help us, as the Prussians came up at Waterloo,
+there would have been no Germans to fight against us now.
+
+It was a cold misty morning when we awoke, but later the day was fine
+enough. We got up, had a cheery and exiguous breakfast to distant,
+intermittent firing, then did a little work on our bicycles. I spent an
+hour or so watching through glasses the dim movement of dull bodies of
+troops and shrapnel bursting vaguely on the horizon. Then we were all
+summoned to H.Q., which were stationed about a mile out from Reumont on
+the Le Cateau road. In front of us the road dipped sharply and rose
+again over the brow of a hill about two miles away. On this brow,
+stretching right and left of the road, there was a line of poplars. On
+the slope of the hill nearer to us there were two or three field
+batteries in action. To the right of us a brigade of artillery was
+limbered up ready to go anywhere. In the left, at the bottom of the dip
+the 108th was in action, partially covered by some sparse bushes. A few
+ambulance waggons and some miscellaneous first-line transport were drawn
+up along the side of the road at the bottom of the dip. To the N.W. we
+could see for about four miles over low, rolling fields. We could see
+nothing to the right, as our view was blocked by a cottage and some
+trees and hedges. On the roof of the cottage a wooden platform had been
+made. On it stood the General and his Chief of Staff and our Captain.
+Four telephone operators worked for their lives in pits breast-high, two
+on each side of the road. The Signal Clerk sat at a table behind the
+cottage, while round him, or near him, were the motor-cyclists and
+cyclists.
+
+About the battle itself you know as much as I. We had wires out to all
+the brigades, and along them the news would come and orders would go.
+The ---- are holding their position satisfactorily. Our flank is being
+turned. Should be very grateful for another battalion. We are under very
+heavy shell fire. Right through the battle I did not take a single
+message. Huggie took a despatch to the 13th, and returned under very
+heavy shrapnel fire, and for this was very properly mentioned in
+despatches.
+
+How the battle fluctuated I cannot now remember. But I can still see
+those poplars almost hidden in the smoke of shrapnel. I can still hear
+the festive crash of the Heavies as they fired slowly, scientifically,
+and well. From 9 to 12.30 we remained there kicking our heels,
+feverishly calm, cracking the absurdest jokes. Then the word went round
+that on our left things were going very badly. Two battalions were
+hurried across, and then, of course, the attack developed even more
+fiercely on our right.
+
+Wounded began to come through--none groaning, but just men with their
+eyes clenched and great crimson bandages.
+
+An order was sent to the transport to clear back off the road. There was
+a momentary panic. The waggons came through at the gallop and with them
+some frightened foot-sloggers, hanging on and running for dear life.
+Wounded men from the firing line told us that the shrapnel was
+unbearable in the trenches.
+
+A man came galloping up wildly from the Heavies. They had run out of
+fuses. Already we had sent urgent messages to the ammunition lorries,
+but the road was blocked and they could not get up to us. So Grimers was
+sent off with a haversack--mine--to fetch fuses and hurry up the
+lorries. How he got there and back in the time that he did, with the
+traffic that there was, I cannot even now understand.
+
+It was now about two o'clock, and every moment the news that we heard
+grew worse and worse, while the wounded poured past us in a continuous
+stream. I gave my water-bottle to one man who was moaning for water. A
+horse came galloping along. Across the saddle-bow was a man with a
+bloody scrap of trouser instead of a leg, while the rider, who had been
+badly wounded in the arm, was swaying from side to side.
+
+A quarter of an hour before the brigade on our right front had gone into
+action on the crest of the hill. Now they streamed back at the trot, all
+telling the tale--how, before they could even unlimber, shells had come
+crashing into them. The column was a lingering tragedy. There were teams
+with only a limber and without a gun. And you must see it to know what a
+twistedly pathetic thing a gun team and limber without a gun is. There
+were bits of teams and teams with only a couple of drivers. The faces of
+the men were awful. I smiled at one or two, but they shook their heads
+and turned away. One sergeant as he passed was muttering to himself, as
+if he were repeating something over and over again so as to learn it by
+rote--"My gun, my gun, my gun!"
+
+At this moment an order came from some one for the motor-cyclists to
+retire to the farm where we had slept the night. The others went on with
+the crowd, but I could not start my engine. After trying for five
+minutes it seemed to me absurd to retreat, so I went back and found that
+apparently nobody had given the order. The other motor-cyclists returned
+one by one as soon as they could get clear, but most of them were
+carried on right past the farm.
+
+A few minutes later there was a great screaming crash
+overhead--shrapnel. I ran to my bicycle and stood by waiting for orders.
+
+The General suggested mildly that we might change our headquarters.
+There was a second crash. We all retired about 200 yards back up the
+road. There I went to the captain in the middle of the traffic and asked
+him what I should do. He told us to get out of it as we could not do
+anything more--"You have all done magnificently"--then he gave me some
+messages for our subaltern. I shouted, "So long, sir," and left him, not
+knowing whether I should ever see him again. I heard afterwards that he
+went back when all the operators had fled and tried to get into
+communication with our Army H.Q.
+
+Just as I had started up my engine another shell burst about 100 yards
+to the left, and a moment later a big waggon drawn by two maddened
+horses came dashing down into the main street. They could not turn, so
+went straight into the wall of a house opposite. There was a dull crash
+and a squirming heap piled up at the edge of the road.
+
+I pushed through the traffic a little and came upon a captain and a
+subaltern making their way desperately back. I do not know who they
+were, but I heard a scrap of what they said--
+
+"We must get back for it," said the captain.
+
+"We shall never return," replied the subaltern gravely.
+
+"It doesn't matter," said the captain.
+
+"It doesn't matter," echoed the subaltern.
+
+But I do not think the gun could have been saved.
+
+About six of us collected in a little bunch at the side of the road. On
+our left we saw a line of infantry running. The road itself was
+impassable. So we determined to strike off to the right. I led the way,
+and though we had not the remotest conception whether we should meet
+British or German, we eventually found our way to 2nd Corps H.Q.
+
+I have only a dim remembrance of what happened there. I went into the
+signal-office and reported that, so far as I knew, the 5th Division was
+in flight along the Reumont-Saint-Quentin road.
+
+The sergeant in charge of the 2nd Corps Motor-cyclists offered us some
+hard-boiled eggs and put me in charge of our lot. Then off we went, and
+hitting the main road just ahead of our muddled column, halted at the
+desolate little village of Estrees.
+
+It now began to rain.
+
+Soon the column came pouring past, so miserably and so slowly,--lorries,
+transport, guns, limbers, small batches of infantrymen, crowds of
+stragglers. All were cursing the French, for right through the battle we
+had expected the French to come up on our right wing. There had been a
+whole corps of cavalry a few miles away, but in reply to our urgent
+request for help their general had reported that his horses were too
+tired. How we cursed them and cursed them.
+
+After a weary hour's wait our subaltern came up, and, at my request,
+sent me to look for the captain. I found him about two miles this side
+of Reumont, endeavouring vainly to make some sort of ordered procession
+out of the almost comically patchwork medley. Later I heard that the
+last four hundred yards of the column had been shelled to destruction as
+it was leaving Reumont, and a tale is told--probably without truth--of
+an officer shooting the driver of the leading motor-lorry in a hopeless
+endeavour to get some ammunition into the firing line.
+
+I scooted back and told the others that our captain was still alive, and
+a little later we pushed off into the flood. It was now getting dark,
+and the rain, which had held off for a little, was pouring down.
+
+Finally, we halted at a tiny cottage, and the Signal Company outspanned.
+
+We tried to make ourselves comfortable in the wet by hiding under damp
+straw and putting on all available bits of clothing. But soon we were
+all soaked to the skin, and it was so dark that horses wandered
+perilously near. One hungry mare started eating the straw that was
+covering my chest. That was enough. Desperately we got up to look round
+for some shelter, and George, our champion "scrounger," discovered a
+chicken-house. It is true there were nineteen fowls in it. They died a
+silent and, I hope, a painless death.
+
+The order came round that the motor-cyclists were to spend the night at
+the cottage--the roads were utterly and hopelessly impassable--while
+the rest of the company was to go on. So we presented the company with a
+few fowls and investigated the cottage.
+
+It was a startling place. In one bedroom was a lunatic hag with some
+food by her side. We left her severely alone. Poor soul, we could not
+move her! In the kitchen we discovered coffee, sugar, salt, and onions.
+With the aid of our old Post Sergeant we plucked some of the chickens
+and put on a great stew. I made a huge basin full of coffee.
+
+The others, dead tired, went to sleep in a wee loft. I could not sleep.
+I was always seeing those wounded men passing, passing, and in my
+ear--like the maddening refrain of a musical comedy ditty--there was
+always murmuring--"We shall never return. It doesn't matter." Outside
+was the clink and clatter of the column, the pitiful curses of tired
+men, the groaning roar of the motor-lorries as they toiled up the slope.
+
+Then the Staff began to wander in one by one--on foot, exhausted and
+bedraggled. They loved the coffee, but only played with the chicken--I
+admit it was tough. They thought all was lost and the General killed.
+One murmured to another: "Magersfontein, Dour, and this--you've had some
+successful battles." And one went to sleep, but kept starting up, and
+giving a sort of strangled shout--"All gone! All gone!" When each had
+rested awhile he would ask gently for a little more coffee, rub his
+eyes, and disappear into the column to tramp through the night to Saint
+Quentin. It was the purest melodrama.
+
+And I, too tired to sleep, too excited to think, sat sipping thick
+coffee the whole night through, while the things that were happening
+soaked into me like petrol into a rag. About two hours before dawn I
+pulled myself together and climbed into the loft for forty minutes'
+broken slumber.
+
+An hour before dawn we wearily dressed. The others devoured cold stew,
+and immediately there was the faintest glimmering of light we went
+outside. The column was still passing,--such haggard, broken men! The
+others started off, but for some little time I could not get my engine
+to fire. Then I got going. Quarter of a mile back I came upon a little
+detachment of the Worcesters marching in perfect order, with a cheery
+subaltern at their head. He shouted a greeting in passing. It was
+Urwick, a friend of mine at Oxford.
+
+I cut across country, running into some of our cavalry on the way. It
+was just light enough for me to see properly when my engine jibbed. I
+cleaned a choked petrol pipe, lit a briar--never have I tasted anything
+so good--and pressed on.
+
+Very bitter I felt, and when nearing Saint Quentin, some French soldiers
+got in my way, I cursed them in French, then in German, and finally in
+good round English oaths for cowards, and I know not what. They looked
+very startled and recoiled into the ditch. I must have looked
+alarming--a gaunt, dirty, unshaven figure towering above my motor-cycle,
+without hat, bespattered with mud, and eyes bright and weary for want of
+sleep. How I hated the French! I hated them because, as I then thought,
+they had deserted us at Mons and again at Le Cateau; I hated them
+because they had the privilege of seeing the British Army in confused
+retreat; I hated them because their roads were very nearly as bad as the
+roads of the Belgians. So, wet, miserable, and angry, I came into Saint
+Quentin just as the sun was beginning to shine a little.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE GREAT RETREAT
+
+
+On the morning of the 27th we draggled into Saint Quentin. I found the
+others gorged with coffee and cakes provided by a kindly Staff-Officer.
+I imitated them and looked around. Troops of all arms were passing
+through very wearily. The people stood about, listless and sullen.
+Everywhere proclamations were posted beseeching the inhabitants to bring
+in all weapons they might possess. We found the Signal Company, and rode
+ahead of it out of the town to some fields above a village called
+Castres. There we unharnessed and took refuge from the gathering storm
+under a half-demolished haystack. The Germans didn't agree to our
+remaining for more than fifty minutes. Orders came for us to harness up
+and move on. I was left behind with the H.Q.S., which had collected
+itself, and was sent a few minutes later to 2nd Corps H.Q. at Ham, a
+ride of about fifteen miles.
+
+On the way I stopped at an inn and discovered there three or four of our
+motor-cyclists, who had cut across country, and an officer. The
+officer[8] told us how he had been sent on to construct trenches at Le
+Cateau. It seems that although he enlisted civilian help, he had neither
+the time nor the men to construct more than very makeshift affairs,
+which were afterwards but slightly improved by the men who occupied
+them.
+
+Five minutes and I was on the road again. It was an easy run, something
+of a joy-ride until, nearing Ham, I ran into a train of motor-lorries,
+which of all the parasites that infest the road are the most difficult
+to pass. Luckily for me they were travelling in the opposite direction
+to mine, so I waited until they passed and then rode into Ham and
+delivered my message.
+
+The streets of Ham were almost blocked by a confused column retreating
+through it. Officers stationed at every corner and bend were doing their
+best to reduce it to some sort of order, but with little success.
+
+Returning I was forced into a byroad by the column, lost my way, took
+the wrong road out of the town, but managed in about a couple of hours
+to pick up the Signal Co., which by this time had reached the Chateau at
+Oleezy.
+
+There was little rest for us that night. Twice I had to run into Ham.
+The road was bad and full of miscellaneous transport. The night was
+dark, and a thick mist clung to the road. Returning the second time, I
+was so weary that I jogged on about a couple of miles beyond my turning
+before I woke up sufficiently to realise where I was.
+
+The next morning (the 28th) we were off before dawn. So tired were we
+that I remember we simply swore at each other for nothing at all. We
+waited, shivering in the morning cold, until the column was well on its
+way.
+
+At Oleezy the Division began to find itself. Look at the map and think
+for a moment what the men had done. On the 21st they had advanced from
+Landrecies to Bavai, a fair day's march on a blazing day. On the 22nd
+they had marched from Bavai to the Canal. From the morning of the 23rd
+to midday or later on the 24th they had fought hard. On the afternoon
+and evening of the 24th they had retired to the Bavai-Saint-Waast line.
+Before dawn on the morning of the 25th they had started off again and
+marched in column of route on another blazing day back to a position a
+few miles south of Le Cateau. The battle had begun as the sun rose on
+the 26th, and continued until three o'clock or later in the afternoon.
+They plodded through the darkness and the rain. No proper halt was made
+until midday of the 27th.
+
+The General, who had escaped, and the Staff worked with ferocious
+energy, as we very painfully knew. Battalions bivouacked in the open
+fields round Oleezy collected the stragglers that came in and
+reorganised themselves. The cavalry were between us and Saint Quentin.
+We were in communication with them by despatch rider. Trains full of
+French troops passed westwards over Oleezy bridge. There were, I
+believe, General d'Amade's two reserve divisions. We had walked away
+from the Germans.
+
+We rode after the column. On the way we passed a battalion of men who
+had been on outpost duty with nothing but a biscuit and a half apiece.
+They broke their ranks to snatch at some meat that had been dumped by
+the roadside, and gnawed it furiously as they marched along until the
+blood ran down from their chins on to their jackets.
+
+I shall never forget how our General saw a batch of Gordons and K.O.S.B.
+stragglers trudging listlessly along the road. He halted them. Some
+more came up until there was about a company in all, and with one piper.
+He made them form fours, put the piper at the head of them. "Now, lads,
+follow the piper, and remember Scotland"; and they all started off as
+pleased as Punch with the tired piper playing like a hero.
+
+Oving or the Fat Boy volunteered to take a message to a body of cavalry
+that was covering our rear. He found them, and then, being mapless (maps
+were very scarce in those days), he lost his way. There was no sun, so
+he rode in what he thought was the right direction, until suddenly he
+discovered that he was two kilometres from Saint Quentin. As the Germans
+were officially reported to be five miles south of the town he turned
+back and fled into the darkness. He slept that night at a cottage, and
+picked up the Division in the morning.
+
+I was sent on to fill up with petrol wherever I could find it. I was
+forced to ride on for about four miles to some cross-roads. There I
+found a staff-car that had some petrol to spare. It was now very hot, so
+I had a bit of a sleep on the dusty grass by the side of the road, then
+sat up to watch lazily the 2nd Corps pass.
+
+The troops were quite cheerful and on the whole marching well. There
+were a large number of stragglers, but the majority of them were not
+men who had fallen out, but men who had become separated from their
+battalions at Le Cateau. A good many were badly footsore. These were
+being crowded into lorries and cars.
+
+There was one solitary desolate figure. He was evidently a reservist, a
+feeble little man of about forty, with three days' growth on his chin.
+He was very, very tired, but was struggling along with an unconquerable
+spirit. I gave him a little bit of chocolate I had; but he wouldn't stop
+to eat it. "I can't stop. If I does, I shall never get there." So he
+chewed it, half-choking, as he stumbled along. I went a few paces after
+him. Then Captain Dillon came up, stopped us, and put the poor fellow in
+a staff-car and sent him along a few miles in solitary grandeur, more
+nervous than comfortable.
+
+Eventually the company came along and I joined. Two miles farther we
+came to a biggish town with white houses that simply glared with
+heat.[9] My water-bottle was empty, so I humbly approached a good lady
+who was doling out cider and water at her cottage door. It did taste
+good! A little farther on I gave up my bicycle to Spuggy, who was riding
+in the cable-cart.
+
+We jolted along at about two miles an hour. For some time two spies
+under escort walked beside the limber. Unlike most spies they looked
+their part. One was tall and thin and handsome. The other was short and
+fat and ugly. The fear of death was on their faces, and the jeers of our
+men died in their mouths. They were marched along for two days until a
+Court could be convened. Then they were shot.
+
+Just before Noyon we turned off to the left and halted for half an hour
+at Landrimont, a little village full of big trees. We had omelettes and
+coffee at the inn, then basked in the sun and smoked. Noyon was
+unattractive. The people did not seem to care what happened to anybody.
+Perhaps we thought that, because we were very tired. Outside Noyon I
+dozed, then went off to sleep.
+
+When I awoke it was quite dark, and the column had halted. The order
+came for all except the drivers to dismount and proceed on foot. The
+bridge ahead was considered unsafe, so waggons went across singly.
+
+I walked on into the village, Pontoise. There were no lights, and the
+main street was illuminated only by the lanterns of officers seeking
+their billets. An A.S.C. officer gave me a lift. Our H.Q. were right the
+other end of the town in the Chateau of the wee hamlet called La
+Pommeraye. I found them, stumbled into a loft, and dropped down for a
+sleep.
+
+We were called fairly late.[10] George and I rode into Pontoise and
+"scrounged" for eggs and bread. These we took to a small and smelly
+cottage. The old woman of the cottage boiled our eggs and gave us
+coffee. It was a luxurious breakfast. I was looking forward to a slack
+lazy day in the sun, for we were told that we had for the moment
+outdistanced the gentle Germans. But my turn came round horribly soon,
+and I was sent off to Compiegne with a message for G.H.Q., and orders to
+find our particularly elusive Div. Train. It was a gorgeous ride along a
+magnificent road, through the great forest, and I did the twenty odd
+miles in forty odd minutes.
+
+G.H.Q. was installed in the Palace. Everybody seemed very clean and
+lordly, and for a moment I was ashamed of my dirty, ragged, unshorn
+self. Then I realised that I was "from the Front"--a magic phrase to
+conjure with for those behind the line--and swaggered through long
+corridors.
+
+After delivering my message I went searching for the Div. Train. First,
+I looked round the town for it, then I had wind of it at the station,
+but at the station it had departed an hour or so before. I returned to
+G.H.Q., but there they knew nothing. I tried every road leading out of
+the town. Finally, having no map, and consequently being unable to make
+a really thorough search, I had a drink, and started off back.
+
+When I returned I found everybody was getting ready to move, so I packed
+up. This time the motor-cyclists rode in advance of the column. About
+two miles out I found that the others had dropped behind out of sight. I
+went on into Carlepont, and made myself useful to the Billeting Officer.
+The others arrived later. It seems there had been a rumour of Uhlans on
+the road, and they had come along fearfully.
+
+The troops marched in, singing and cheering. It was unbelievable what
+half a day's rest had done for them. Of course you must remember that we
+all firmly believed, except in our moments of deepest despondency,
+first, that we could have held the Germans at Mons and Le Cateau if the
+French had not "deserted" us, and second, that our retreat was merely a
+"mouvement strategique."
+
+There was nothing doing at the Signal Office, so we went and had some
+food--cold sausage and coffee. Our hostess was buxom and hilarious.
+There was also a young girl about the place, Helene. She was of a middle
+size, serious and dark, with a mass of black lustreless hair. She could
+not have been more than nineteen. Her baby was put to bed immediately
+we arrived. We loved them both, because they were the first women we had
+met since Mons who had not wanted to know why we were retreating and had
+not received the same answer--"mouvement strategique pour attaquer le
+mieux." I had a long talk that night with Helene as she stood at her
+door. Behind us the dark square was filled with dark sleeping soldiers,
+the noise of snoring and the occasional clatter of moving horses.
+Finally, I left her and went to sleep on the dusty boards of an attic in
+the Chateau.
+
+We were called when it was still dark and very cold (August 30). I was
+vainly trying to warm myself at a feeble camp fire when the order came
+to move off--without breakfast. The dawn was just breaking when we set
+out--to halt a hundred yards or so along. There we shivered for half an
+hour with nothing but a pipe and a scrap of chocolate that had got stuck
+at the bottom of my greatcoat pocket. Finally, the motor-cyclists, to
+their great relief, were told that they might go on ahead. The Grimers
+and I cut across a country to get away from the column. We climbed an
+immense hill in the mist, and proceeding by a devious route eventually
+bustled into Attichy, where we found a large and dirty inn containing
+nothing but some bread and jam. The column was scheduled to go ten
+miles farther, but "the situation being favourable" it was decided to go
+no farther. Headquarters were established by the roadside, and I was
+sent off to a jolly village right up on the hill to halt some sappers,
+and then back along the column to give the various units the names of
+their billets.
+
+We supped off the sizzling bacon and slept on the grass by the side of
+the road. That night George burned his Rudge. It was an accident, but we
+were none too sorry, for it had given much trouble. There were messages
+right through the night. At one in the morning I was sent off to a
+Chateau in the Forest of Compiegne. I had no map, and it was a pure
+accident that I found my way there and back.
+
+The next day (Aug. 31) was a joyous ride. We went up and down hills to a
+calm, lazy little village, Haute Fontaine. There we took a wrong turning
+and found ourselves in a blackberry lane. It was the hottest,
+pleasantest of days, and forgetting all about the more serious
+things--we could not even hear the guns--we filled up with the softest,
+ripest of fruit. Three of us rode together, N'Soon, Grimers, and myself.
+I don't know how we found our way. We just wandered on through sleepy,
+cobbled villages, along the top of ridges with great misty views and by
+quiet streams. Just beyond a village stuck on to the side of a hill, we
+came to a river, and through the willows we saw a little church. It was
+just like the Happy Valley that's over the fields from Burford.
+
+We all sang anything we could remember as we rattled along. The bits of
+columns that we passed did not damp us, for they consisted only of
+transport, and transport can never be tragic--even in a retreat. The
+most it can do is to depress you with a sense of unceasing monotonous
+effort.
+
+About three o'clock we came to a few houses--Bethancourt. There was an
+omelette, coffee, and pears for us at the inn. The people were
+frightened.
+
+     Why are the English retreating? Are they defeated?
+
+      No, it is only a strategical movement.
+
+      Will the dirty Germans pass by here? We had better pack up
+     our traps and fly.
+
+We were silent for a moment, then I am afraid I lied blandly.
+
+     Oh no, this is as far as we go.
+
+But I had reckoned without my host, a lean, wiry old fellow, a bit stiff
+about the knees. First of all he proudly showed me his soldier's
+book--three campaigns in Algeria. A crowd of smelly women pressed round
+us--luckily we had finished our meal--while with the help of a few
+knives and plates he explained exactly what a strategical movement was,
+and demonstrated to the satisfaction of everybody except ourselves that
+the valley we were in was obviously the place "pour reculer le mieux."
+
+We had been told that our H.O. were going to be at a place called
+Bethisy St Martin, so on we went. A couple of miles from Bethisy we came
+upon a billeting party of officers sitting in the shade of a big tree by
+the side of the road. Had we heard that the Germans were at Compiegne,
+ten miles or so over the hill? No, we hadn't. Was it safe to go on into
+Bethisy? None of us had an idea. We stopped and questioned a "civvy"
+push-cyclist. He had just come from Bethisy and had seen no Germans. The
+officers started arguing whether or no they should wait for an escort.
+We got impatient and slipped on. Of course there was nothing in Bethisy
+except a wide-eyed population, a selection of smells, and a vast
+congregation of chickens. The other two basked on some hay in the sun,
+while I went back and pleased myself immensely by reporting to the
+officers who were timorously trotting along that there wasn't a sign of
+a Uhlan.
+
+We rested a bit. One of us suggested having a look round for some Uhlans
+from the top of the nearest hill. It was a terrific climb up a narrow
+track, but our bicycles brought us up magnificently. From the top we
+could see right away to the forest of Compiegne, but a judicious bit of
+scouting produced nothing.
+
+Coming down we heard from a passing car that H.Q. were to be at
+Crepy-en-Valois, a biggish old place about four miles away to the south
+the other side of Bethancourt. We arrived there just as the sun was
+going to set. It was a confusing place, crammed full of transport, but I
+found my way to our potential H.Q. with the aid of a joyous little
+flapper on my carrier.
+
+Then I remembered I had left my revolver behind on the hill above
+Bethisy. Just before I started I heard that there were bags of Uhlans
+coming along over the hills and through the woods. But there was nothing
+for it but to go back, and back I went. It was a bestial climb in the
+dusk. On my way back I saw some strange-looking figures in the grounds
+of a chateau. So I opened my throttle and thundered past.
+
+Later I found that the figures belonged to the rest of the
+motor-cyclists. The chateau ought to have been our H.Q., and arriving
+there they had been entertained to a sit-down tea and a bath.
+
+We had a rotten night--nothing between me and a cold, hard tiled floor
+except a waterproof sheet, but no messages.
+
+We woke very early (September 1st) to the noise of guns. The Germans
+were attacking vigorously, having brought up several brigades of Jaegers
+by motor-bus. The 15th was on our left, the 13th was holding the hill
+above Bethancourt, and the 14th was scrapping away on the right. The
+guns were ours, as the Germans didn't appear to have any with them. I
+did a couple of messages out to the 15th. The second time I came back
+with the news that their left flank was being turned.
+
+A little later one of our despatch riders rode in hurriedly. He reported
+that, while he was riding along the road to the 15th, he had been shot
+at by Uhlans whom he had seen distinctly. At the moment it was of the
+utmost importance to get a despatch through to the 15th. The Skipper
+offered to take it, but the General refused his offer.
+
+A second despatch rider was carefully studying his map. It seemed to him
+absolutely inconceivable that Uhlans should be at the place where the
+first despatch rider had seen them. They must either have ridden right
+round our left flank and left rear, or else broken through the line. So
+he offered boldly to take the despatch.
+
+He rode by a slightly roundabout road, and reached the 15th in safety.
+On his way back he saw a troop of North Irish Horse. In the meantime the
+Divisional Headquarters had left Crepy in great state, the men with
+rifles in front, and taken refuge on a hill south-east of the town. On
+his return the despatch rider was praised mightily for his work, but to
+this day he believes the Uhlans were North Irish Horse and the bullets
+"overs"[11]--to this day the first despatch rider contradicts him.
+
+The Division got away from Crepy with the greatest success. The 13th
+slaughtered those foolish Huns that tried to charge up the hill in the
+face of rifle, machine-gun, and a considerable shell fire. The Duke of
+Wellington's laid a pretty little ambush and hooked a car containing the
+general and staff of the 1st Cavalry Division. The prisoners were
+remorsefully shot, as it would have been impossible to bring them away
+under the heavy fire.
+
+We jogged on to Nanteuil, all of us very pleased with ourselves,
+particularly the Duke of Wellington's, who were loaded with spoils, and
+a billeting officer who, running slap into some Uhlans, had been fired
+at all the way from 50 yards' range to 600 and hadn't been hit.
+
+I obtained leave to give a straggler a lift of a couple of miles. He was
+embarrassingly grateful. The last few miles was weary work for the men.
+Remember they had marched or fought, or more often both, every day since
+our quiet night at Landrecies. The road, too, was the very roughest
+_pave_, though I remember well a little forest of bracken and pines we
+went through. Being "a would-be literary bloke," I murmured "Scottish";
+being tired I forgot it from the moment after I saw it until now.
+
+There was no rest at Nanteuil. I took the Artillery Staff Captain round
+the brigades on my carrier, and did not get back until 10. A bit of hot
+stew and a post-card from home cheered me. I managed a couple of hours'
+sleep.
+
+We turned out about 3, the morning of September 2nd. It was quite dark
+and bitterly cold. Very sleepily indeed we rode along an exiguous path
+by the side of the cobbles. The sun had risen, but it was still cold
+when we rattled into that diabolical city of lost souls, Dammartin.
+
+Nobody spoke as we entered. Indeed there were only a few haggard, ugly
+old women, each with a bit of a beard and a large goitre. One came up to
+me and chattered at me. Then suddenly she stopped and rushed away, still
+gibbering. We asked for a restaurant. A stark, silent old man, with a
+goitre, pointed out an _estaminet_. There we found four motionless men,
+who looked up at us with expressionless eyes. Chilled, we withdrew into
+the street. Silent, melancholy soldiers--the H.Q. of some army or
+division--were marching miserably out. We battered at the door of a
+hotel for twenty minutes. We stamped and cursed and swore, but no one
+would open. Only a hideous and filthy crowd stood round, and not one of
+them moved a muscle. Finally, we burst into a bare little inn, and had
+such a desolate breakfast of sour wine, bread, and bully. We finished as
+soon as we could to leave the nightmare place. Even the houses were
+gaunt and ill-favoured.
+
+On our way out we came across a deserted motor-cycle. Some one suggested
+sending it on by train, until some one else remarked that there were no
+trains, and this was fifteen miles from Paris.
+
+We cut across country, rejoined the column, and rode with it to
+Vinantes, passing on the way a lost motor-lorry. The driver was tearing
+his hair in an absolute panic. We told him the Germans were just a few
+miles along the road; but we wished we hadn't when, in hurriedly
+reversing to escape, he sent a couple of us into the ditch.
+
+At Vinantes we "requisitioned" a car, some chickens, and a pair of
+boots. There was a fusty little tavern down the street, full of laughing
+soldiers. In the corner a fat, middle-aged woman sat weeping quietly on
+a sack. The host, sullen and phlegmatic, answered every question with a
+shake of the head and a muttered "N'importe." The money he threw
+contemptuously on the counter. The soldiers thought they were spies. "As
+speaking the langwidge," I asked him what the matter was.
+
+     "They say, sir, that this village will be shelled by the
+     cursed Germans, and the order has gone out to evacuate."
+
+Then, suddenly his face became animated, and he told me volubly how he
+had been born in the village, how he had been married there, how he had
+kept the _estaminet_ for twenty years, how all the leading men of the
+village came of an evening and talked over the things that were
+happening in Paris.
+
+He started shouting, as men will--
+
+     "What does it matter what I sell, what I receive? What does
+     it matter, for have I not to leave all this?"
+
+Then his wife came up and put her hand on his arm--
+
+     "Now, now; give the gentlemen their beer."
+
+I bought some cherry brandy and came away.
+
+I was sent on a couple of messages that afternoon: one to trace a
+telephone wire to a deserted station with nothing in it but a sack of
+excellent potatoes, another to an officer whom I could not find. I
+waited under a tree eating somebody else's pears until I was told he had
+gone mad, and was wandering aimlessly about.
+
+It was a famous night for me. I was sent off to Dammartin, and knew
+something would go wrong. It did. A sentry all but shot me. I nearly
+rode into an unguarded trench across the road, and when I started back
+with my receipt my bicycle would not fire. I found that the mechanic at
+Dammartin had filled my tank with water. It took me two hours, two lurid
+hours, to take that water out. It was three in the morning when I got
+going. I was badly frightened the Division had gone on, because I hadn't
+the remotest conception where it was going to. When I got back H.Q. were
+still at Vinantes. I retired thankfully to my bed under the stars,
+listening dreamily to Grimers, who related how a sentry had fired at
+him, and how one bullet had singed the back of his neck.
+
+We left Vinantes not too early after breakfast,--a comfort, as we had
+all of us been up pretty well the whole night. Grimers was still upset
+at having been shot at by sentries. I had been going hard, and had had
+only a couple of hours' sleep. We rode on in advance of the company. It
+was very hot and dusty, and when we arrived at Crecy with several hours
+to spare, we first had a most excellent omelette and then a shave, a
+hair-cut, and a wash. Crecy was populous and excited. It made us joyous
+to think we had reached a part of the country where the shops were open,
+people pursuing their own business, where there was no dumbly
+reproaching glance for us in our retreat.
+
+We had been told that our H.Q. that night were going to be at the
+chateau of a little village called La Haute Maison. Three of us arrived
+there and found the caretaker just leaving. We obtained the key, and
+when he had gone did a little bit of looting on our own. First we had a
+great meal of lunch-tongue, bread, wine, and stewed pears. Then we
+carefully took half a dozen bottles of champagne and hid them, together
+with some other food-stuffs, in the middle of a big bed of nettles. A
+miscellaneous crowd of cows were wandering round the house lowing
+pitifully.
+
+We were just about to make a heroic effort at milking when the 3rd Div.
+billeting officer arrived and told us that the 5th Div. H.Q. would be
+that night at Bouleurs, farther back. We managed to carry off the
+food-stuffs, but the champagne is probably still in the nettles. And the
+bottles are standing up too.
+
+We found the company encamped in a schoolhouse, our fat signal-sergeant
+doing dominie at the desk. I made himself a comfortable sleeping-place
+with straw, then went out on the road to watch the refugees pass.
+
+I don't know what it was. It may have been the bright and clear evening
+glow, but--you will laugh--the refugees seemed to me absurdly beautiful.
+A dolorous, patriarchal procession of old men with white beards leading
+their asthmatic horses that drew huge country carts piled with clothes,
+furniture, food, and pets. Frightened cows with heavy swinging udders
+were being piloted by lithe middle-aged women. There was one girl
+demurely leading goats. In the full crudity of curve and distinctness of
+line she might have sat for Steinlen,--there was a brownness, too, in
+the atmosphere. Her face was olive and of perfect proportions; her
+eyelashes long and black. She gave me a terrified side-glance, and I
+thought I was looking at the picture of the village flirt in serene
+flight.
+
+I connect that girl with a whisky-and-soda, drunk about midnight out of
+a tin mug under the trees, thanks to the kindness of the Divisional
+Train officers. It did taste fine.
+
+The next day (September 4th) I was attached to the Divisional Cyclists.
+We spent several hours on the top of a hill, looking right across the
+valley for Germans. I was glad of the rest, as very early in the morning
+I had been sent off at full speed to prevent an officer blowing up a
+bridge. Luckily I blundered into one of his men, and scooting across a
+mile of heavy plough, I arrived breathless at the bridge, but just in
+time. The bridge in the moonlight looked like a patient horse waiting to
+be whipped on the raw. The subaltern was very angry. There had been an
+alarm of Uhlans, and his French escort had retired from the bridge to
+safer quarters....
+
+I shared Captain Burnett's lunch, and later went to fetch some men from
+a bridge that we had blown up. It seemed to me at the time that the
+bridge had been blown up very badly. As a matter of fact, German
+infantry crossed it four hours after I had left it.
+
+We had "the wind up" that afternoon. It appears that a patrol of six
+Uhlans had either been cut off or had somehow got across the river at
+Meaux. Anyway, they rode past an unsuspecting sleepy outpost of ours,
+and spread alarm through the division. Either the division was panicky
+or the report had become exaggerated on the way to H.Q. Batteries were
+put into position on the Meaux road, and there was a general liveliness.
+
+I got back from a hard but unexciting day's work with the Cyclists to
+find that the Germans had got across in very fact, though not at Meaux,
+and that we were going to do a further bunk that night. We cursed the
+gentle Germans heartily and well. About 10.30 the three of us who were
+going on started. We found some convoys on the way, delivered messages,
+and then I, who was leading, got badly lost in the big Villeneuve
+forest--I forgot the name of it at the moment.[12] Of course I pretended
+that we were taking the shortest road, and luck, which is always with me
+when I've got to find anything, didn't desert me that night.
+
+At dead of night we echoed into the Chateau at Tournan, roused some
+servants, and made them get us some bread, fruit, and mattresses. The
+bread and fruit we devoured, together with a lunch-tongue, from that
+excellent Chateau at La Haute Maison--the mattresses we took into a
+large airy room and slept on, until we were wakened by the peevish
+tones of the other motor-cyclists who had ridden with the column. One of
+them had fallen asleep on his bicycle and disappeared into a ditch, but
+the other two were so sleepy they did not hear him. We were all weary
+and bad-tempered, while a hot dusty day, and a rapid succession of
+little routine messages, did not greatly cheer us.
+
+At Tournan, appropriately, we turned. We were only a few miles S.-E. of
+Paris. The Germans never got farther than Lagny. There they came into
+touch with our outposts, so the tactful French are going to raise a
+monument to Jeanne d'Arc--a reminder, I suppose, that even we and they
+committed atrocities sometime.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] I do not know who the officer was, and I give the story as I wrote
+it in a letter home--for what it is worth.
+
+[9] It must have been Guiscard.
+
+[10] August 29th.
+
+[11] Stray bullets that, fired too high, miss their mark, and
+occasionally hit men well behind the actual firing line.
+
+[12] Foret de Crecy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+OVER THE MARNE TO THE AISNE
+
+
+The morning of September 5th was very hot, but the brigades could easily
+be found, and the roads to them were good. There was cheerfulness in the
+air. A rumour went round--it was quite incredible, and we scoffed--that
+instead of further retreating either beyond or into the fortifications
+of Paris, there was a possibility of an advance. The Germans, we were
+told, had at last been outflanked. Joffre's vaunted plan that had
+inspired us through the dolorous startled days of retirement was, it
+appeared, a fact, and not one of those bright fancies that the Staff
+invents for our tactical delectation.
+
+Spuggy returned. He had left us at Bouleurs to find a bicycle in Paris.
+Coming back he had no idea that we had moved. So he rode too far north.
+He escaped luckily. He was riding along about three hundred yards behind
+two motor-cyclists. Suddenly he saw them stop abruptly and put up their
+hands. He fled. A little farther on he came to a village and asked for
+coffee. He heard that Uhlans had been there a few hours before, and was
+taken to see a woman who had been shot through the breast. Then he went
+south through Villeneuve, and following a fortunate instinct, ran into
+our outposts the other side of Tournan.
+
+We all slept grandly on mattresses. It was the first time we had been
+two nights in the same place since Dour.
+
+We awoke early to a gorgeous day. We were actually going to advance. The
+news put us in marvellous good temper. For the first time in my
+recollection we offered each other our bacon, and one at the end of
+breakfast said he had had enough. The Staff was almost giggling, and a
+battalion (the Cheshires, I think) that we saw pass, was absolutely
+shouting with joy. You would have thought we had just gained a famous
+victory.
+
+Half of us went forward with the column. The rest remained for a
+slaughterous hour. First we went to the hen-house, and in ten minutes
+had placed ten dripping victims in the French gendarme captain's car.
+Then George and I went in pursuit of a turkey for the Skipper. It was an
+elusive bird with a perfectly Poultonian swerve, but with a bagful of
+curses, a bleeding hand, and a large stick, I did it to death.
+
+We set out merrily and picked up Spuggy, Cecil, and George in the big
+forest that stretches practically from the Marne to Tournan. They
+thought they had heard a Uhlan, but nothing came of it (he turned out to
+be a deer), so we went on to Villeneuve. There I bought some biscuits
+and George scrounged some butter. A job to the 3rd Division on our right
+and another in pursuit of an errant officer, and then a sweaty and
+exiguous lunch--it was a sweltering noon--seated on a blistering
+pavement. Soon after lunch three of us were sent on to Mortcerf, a
+village on a hill to the north of the forest. We were the first English
+there--the Germans had left it in the morning--and the whole population,
+including one strikingly pretty flapper, turned out to welcome us in
+their best clean clothes,--it may have been Sunday.
+
+We accepted any quantity of gorgeous, luscious fruit, retiring modestly
+to a shady log to eat it, and smoke a delectable pipe. In a quarter of
+an hour Major Hildebrand of the 2nd Corps turned up in his car, and
+later the company.
+
+Pollers had had a little adventure. He was with some of our men when he
+saw a grey figure coming down one of the glades to the road. We knew
+there were many stray Uhlans in the forest who had been left behind by
+our advance. The grey figure was stalked, unconscious of his danger.
+Pollers had a shot with his revolver, luckily without effect, for the
+figure turned out to be our blasphemous farrier, who had gone into the
+forest, clad only in regulation grey shirt and trousers, to find some
+water.
+
+Later in the afternoon I was sent off to find the North Irish Horse. I
+discovered them four miles away in the first flush of victory. They had
+had a bit of a scrap with Uhlans, and were proudly displaying to an
+admiring brigade that was marching past a small but select collection of
+horses, lances, and saddles.
+
+This afternoon George smashed up his bicycle, the steering head giving
+at a corner.
+
+We bivouacked on the drive, but the hardness of our bed didn't matter,
+as we were out all night--all of us, including the two, Grimers and
+Cecil. It was nervous riding in the forest. All the roads looked exactly
+alike, and down every glade we expected a shot from derelict Uhlans.
+That night I thought out plots for at least four stories. It would have
+been three, but I lost my way, and was only put right by striking a
+wandering convoy. I was in search of the Division Train. I looked for
+it at Tournan and at Villeneuve and right through the forest, but
+couldn't find it. I was out from ten to two, and then again from two to
+five, with messages for miscellaneous ammunition columns. I collared an
+hour's sleep and, by mistake, a chauffeur's overcoat, which led to
+recriminations in the morning. But the chauffeur had an unfair
+advantage. I was too tired to reply.
+
+Grimers, who cannot see well at night, was terrified when he had to take
+a despatch through the forest. He rode with a loaded revolver in one
+hand, and was only saved from shooting a wretched transport officer by a
+wild cry, "For God's sake, look what you're doing."
+
+The eldest Cecil reported a distinct smell of dead horses at the obelisk
+in the forest. At least he rather thought they were dead donkeys. The
+smell was a little different--more acrid and unpleasant. We told him
+that there were eight dead Germans piled at the side of the road, and we
+reminded him that it had been a sweltering day.
+
+We were terribly tired in the morning. Spuggy, George, and Orr went off
+to Paris for new bicycles, and we were left short-handed again. Another
+tropical day.
+
+The Skipper rode the spare bike with great dash, the elder Cecil and I
+attendant. We sprinted along a good straight road to the cobbled,
+crowded little town of Faremoutiers. Then we decided to advance to
+Mouroux, our proposed headquarters. It was a haggard village, just off
+the road. We arrived there about twelve: the Germans had departed at
+six, leaving behind them a souvenir in the dead body of a fellow from
+the East Lancs. crumpled in a ditch. He had been shot while eating. It
+was my first corpse. I am afraid I was not overwhelmed with thoughts of
+the fleetingness of life or the horror of death. If I remember my
+feelings aright, they consisted of a pinch of sympathy mixed with a
+trifle of disgust, and a very considerable hunger, which some apples by
+the roadside did something to allay.
+
+I shall never forget Mouroux. It was just a little square of old houses.
+Before the Mairie was placed a collection of bottles from which the
+Sales Boches had very properly drunk. French proclamations were
+scribbled over with coarse, heavy jests. The women were almost
+hysterical with relieved anxiety. The men were still sullen, and, though
+they looked well fed, begged for bread. A German knapsack that I had
+picked up and left in charge of some villagers was torn to shreds in
+fierce hatred when my back was turned.
+
+It was very lonely there in the sun. We had outstripped the
+advance-guard by mistake and were relieved when it came up.
+
+We made prisoner of a German who had overslept himself because he had
+had a bath.
+
+I rushed back with Grimers on my carrier to fetch another bicycle. On my
+return my engine suddenly produced an unearthly metallic noise. It was
+only an aeroplane coming down just over my head.
+
+In the late afternoon we marched into Coulommiers. The people crowded
+into the streets and cheered us. The girls, with tears in their eyes,
+handed us flowers.
+
+Three of us went to the Mairie. The Maire, a courtly little fellow in
+top-hat and frock-coat, welcomed us in charming terms. Two fat old women
+rushed up to us and besought us to allow them to do something for us. We
+set one to make us tea, and the other to bring us hot water and soap.
+
+A small girl of about eight brought me her kitten and wanted to give it
+me. I explained to her that it would not be very comfortable tied with
+pink ribbons to my carrier. She gravely assented, sat on my knee, told
+me I was very dirty, and commanded me to kill heaps and heaps of
+Germans. She didn't like them; they had beards!
+
+You know those fierce middle-aged Frenchwomen of the _bourgeois_ class,
+hard as Scotsmen, close as Jews, and with feelings about as fine as
+those of a motor-bus. She was one of them, and she was the foremost of a
+largish crowd that collected round me. With her was a pretty girl of
+about twenty-two.
+
+The mother began with a rhetorical outburst against all Germans,
+anathematising in particular those who had spent the last fortnight in
+Coulommiers, in which town her uncle had set up his business, which,
+though it had proved successful, as they all knew, &c., &c. The crowd
+murmured that they did all know. Then the old harridan chanted the
+wrongs which the Germans had wrought until, when she had worked the
+crowd and herself up to a heat of furious excitement, she lowered her
+voice, suddenly lowered her tone. In a grating whisper she narrated, in
+more detail than I cared to hear, the full story of how her daughter--to
+whom she pointed--had been shamefully treated by the Germans. The crowd
+growled. The daughter was, I think, more pleased at being the object of
+my sympathy and the centre of the crowd's interest than agonised at the
+remembrance of her misfortune.
+
+Some of the company coming up saved me from the recital of further
+outrages. The hag told them of a house where the Germans had left a
+rifle or two and some of our messages which they had intercepted. The
+girl hesitated a moment, and then followed. I started hastily to go on,
+but the girl, hearing the noise of my engine, ran back to bid me an
+unembarrassed farewell.
+
+I rode through Coulommiers, a jolly rambling old town, to our billet in
+a suburban villa on the Rebais road. The Division was marching past in
+the very best of spirits. We, who were very tired, endeavoured to make
+ourselves comfortable--we were then blanketless--on the abhorrent
+surface of a narrow garden path.
+
+That night a 2nd Corps despatch rider called in half an hour before his
+death. We have heard many explanations of how he died. He crashed into a
+German barricade, and we discovered him the next morning with his eyes
+closed, neatly covered with a sheet, in a quaint little house at the
+entrance to the village of Doue.
+
+At dawn (Sept. 8th) the others went on with the column. I was sent back
+with a despatch for Faremoutiers, and then was detailed to remain for an
+hour with Cecil. Ten minutes after my return the Fat Boy rode in,
+greatly excited. He had gone out along the Aulnoy road with a message,
+and round a corner had run into a patrol of Uhlans. He kept his head,
+turned quickly, and rode off in a shower of bullets. He was
+tremendously indignant, and besought some cavalry who were passing to
+go in pursuit.
+
+We heard the rumble of guns and started in a hurry after the column.
+Sergeant Merchant's bicycle--our spare, a Rudge--burnt out its clutch,
+and we left it in exchange for some pears at a cottage with a delicious
+garden in Champbreton. Doue was a couple of miles farther on.
+
+Colonel Sawyer, D.D.M.S., stopped me anxiously, and asked me to go and
+see if I could recognise the despatch rider's corpse. I meditated over
+it for a few minutes, then ran on to the signal-office by the roadside.
+There I exchanged my old bike for a new one which had been discovered in
+a cottage. Nothing was wrong with my ancient grid except a buckled back
+rim, due to collision with a brick when riding without a lamp. One of
+the company rode it quietly to Serches, then it went on the side-car,
+and was eventually discarded at Beuvry.
+
+I found the Division very much in action. The object of the Germans was,
+by an obstinate rearguard action, to hold first the line of the Petit
+Morin and second the line La Ferte to the hills north of Mery, so that
+their main body might get back across the Marne and continue northward
+their retreat, necessitated by our pressure on their flank. This retreat
+again was to be as slow as possible, to prevent an outflanking of the
+whole.
+
+Our object was obviously to prevent them achieving theirs.
+
+Look at the map and grasp these three things:--
+
+     1. The two rivers--the Petit Morin debouching so as to cover
+     the German left centre.
+
+      2. From La Ferte westwards the rivers run in deep ravines,
+     hemmed in by precipitous thickly-wooded hills.
+
+      3. Only two bridges across the Marne remained--one large
+     one at La Ferte and one small one at Saacy.
+
+When I arrived at Doue the Germans were holding the Forest of Jouarre in
+force. They were in moderate force on the south bank of the Petit Morin,
+and had some guns, but not many, on the north bank.
+
+Here is a tale of how glory may be forced upon the unwilling.
+
+There were troops on the road running south from Jouarre. They might be
+Germans retreating. They might be the 3rd Corps advancing. The Staff
+wanted to know at once, and, although a despatch rider had already been
+sent west to ride up the road from the south, it was thought that
+another despatch rider skirting the east side of the Bois de Jouarre
+might find out more quickly. So the captain called for volunteers.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARNE
+(LAGNY _TO_ CHATEAU-THIERRY)]
+
+Now one despatch rider had no stomach for the job. He sat behind a tree
+and tried to look as if he had not heard the captain's appeal. The
+sergeant in charge had faith in him and, looking round, said in a loud
+voice, "Here is Jones!" (it is obviously impolitic for me to give even
+his nickname, if I wish to tell the truth). The despatch rider jumped
+up, pretended he knew nothing of what was going forward, and asked what
+was required. He was told, and with sinking heart enthusiastically
+volunteered for the job.
+
+He rode off, taking the road by La Chevrie Farm. Beyond the farm the
+Germans sniped him unmercifully, but (so he told me) he got well down on
+the tank and rode "all out" until he came to the firing line just
+south-west of the farm to the north of Chevrie. Major Buckle came out of
+his ditch to see what was wanted. The rifle fire seemed to increase. The
+air was buzzing, and just in front of his bicycle multitudinous little
+spurts of dust flecked the road.
+
+It was distinctly unpleasant, and, as Major Buckle persisted in standing
+in the middle of the road instead of taking the despatch rider with him
+into his ditch, the despatch rider had to stand there too, horribly
+frightened. The Major said it was impossible to go farther. There was
+only a troop of cavalry, taking careful cover, at the farm in front,
+and--
+
+     "My God, man, you're under machine-gun fire."
+
+So that's what it is, murmured the despatch rider to himself, not
+greatly cheered. He saw he could not get to any vantage point by that
+road, and it seemed best to get back at once. He absolutely streaked
+along back to D.H.Q., stopping on the way very much against his will to
+deliver a message from Major Buckle to the Duke of Wellington's who were
+in support.
+
+He gave in his report, such as it was, to Colonel Romer, and was
+praised. Moral: Be called away by some pressing engagement _before_ the
+captain calls for volunteers. May _Gott strafe_ thoroughly all
+interfering sergeants!
+
+The Headquarters Staff advanced in an hour or so to some houses. The 3rd
+Corps, consisting of the 4th Division and the unlucky 19th Brigade, had
+pushed on with tremendous dash towards Jouarre, and we learnt from an
+aeroplane which dropped a message on the hill at Doue that the general
+situation was favourable. The Germans were crowding across the bridge at
+La Ferte under heavy shell fire, but unluckily we could not hit the
+blighted bridge.
+
+It was now midday and very hot. There was little water. We had been
+advancing over open fields without a vestige of shade.
+
+Under cover of their guns the Germans fled across the Petit Morin in
+such confusion that they did not even hold the very defensible heights
+to the north of the river. We followed on their heels through St Ouen
+and up the hill behind the village. Three of us went on ahead and sat
+for two hours in a trench with borrowed rifles waiting for the Germans
+to come out of a wood. But it began to rain very hard, and the Germans
+came on the other side and were taken by the Cyclists.
+
+It was just getting dark when we rendezvoused at the cross-roads of
+Charnesseuil. The village was battered by our guns, but the villagers
+did not mind a scrap and welcomed us with screams of joy. The local inn
+was reopened with cheers, and in spite of the fact that there were two
+dead horses, very evil-smelling, just outside, we had drinks all round.
+
+We were interrupted by laughter and cheers. We rushed out to see the
+quaintest procession coming from the west into Charnesseuil. Seventy odd
+immense Prussian Guards were humbly pushing in the bicycles of forty of
+our Divisional Cyclists, who were dancing round them in delight. They
+had captured a hundred and fifty of them, but our guns had shelled them,
+luckily without doing much damage to the Cyclists, so loading up the
+prisoners with all their kit and equipment, and making them lead their
+captors' bicycles, the Cyclists brought them in triumph for the
+inspection of the Staff. It was a great moment.
+
+I was very tired, and, careless of who passed, stretched myself at the
+side of the road for a sleep. I was wakened an hour later, and we all
+went along together to the chateau. There we slept in the hall before
+the contented faces of some fine French pictures--or the majority of
+them,--the rest were bestially slashed.
+
+At the break of dawn (Sept. 9th) I was sent off to the 14th Brigade,
+which composed the advance-guard. Scouts had reported that Saacy had
+been evacuated by the enemy. So we pushed on cautiously and took
+possession of the bridge.
+
+I came up with the Brigade Staff on a common at the top of the
+succeeding hill, having been delayed by a puncture. Nixon, the S.O.,
+told me that a battery of ours in position on the common to the south of
+the farm would open fire in a few minutes. The German guns would reply,
+but would be quickly silenced. In the meantime I was to take shelter in
+the farm.
+
+I had barely put my bicycle under cover in the courtyard when the
+Germans opened fire, not at our guns but at a couple of companies of the
+Manchesters who were endeavouring to take cover just north of the farm.
+
+In the farm I found King and his platoon of Cyclists. Shrapnel bullets
+simply rattled against the old house, and an occasional common shell
+dropped near by way of variety. The Cyclists were restive, and I was
+too, so to relieve the situation I proposed breakfast. King and I had
+half a loaf of Saacy bread and half a pot of jam I always carried about
+with me. The rest went to the men. Our breakfast was nearly spoilt by
+the Manchesters, who, after they had lost a few men, rushed through the
+farm into the wood, where, naturally enough, they lost a few more. They
+besought the Cyclists to cover their retreat, but as it was from
+shrapnel we mildly suggested it was impossible.
+
+The courtyard was by this time covered with tiles and pitted with
+bullets. We, close up against the wall, had been quite moderately safe.
+The shelling slackened off, so we thought we had better do a bunk. With
+pride of race the motor-cyclist left last.
+
+The 14th Brigade had disappeared. I went back down the track and found
+the General and his staff, fuming, half-way up the hill. The German guns
+could not be found, and the German guns were holding up the whole
+Division.
+
+I slept by the roadside for an hour. I was woken up to take a message to
+2nd Corps at Saacy. On my return I was lucky enough to see a very
+spectacular performance.
+
+From the point which I call A to the point B is, or ought to be, 5000
+yards. At A there is a gap in the wood, and you get a gorgeous view over
+the valley. The road from La Ferte to the point B runs on high ground,
+and at B there is a corresponding gap, the road being open completely
+for roughly 200 yards. A convoy of German lorries was passing with an
+escort of infantry, and the General thought we might as well have a shot
+at them. Two 18-pdrs. were man-handled to the side of the hill and
+opened fire, while six of us with glasses and our lunch sat behind and
+watched.
+
+It was a dainty sight--the lorries scooting across, while the escort
+took cover. The guns picked off a few, completely demolishing two
+lorries, then with a few shells into some cavalry that appeared on the
+horizon, they ceased fire.
+
+The affair seemed dangerous to the uninitiated despatch rider. Behind
+the two guns was a brigade of artillery in column of route on an
+exceedingly steep and narrow road. Guns firing in the open can be seen.
+If the Germans were to spot us, we shuddered to think what would become
+of the column behind us on the road.
+
+That afternoon I had nothing more to do, so, returning to the common, I
+dozed there for a couple of hours, knowing that I should have little
+sleep that night. At dusk we bivouacked in the garden of the chateau at
+Mery. We arrived at the chateau before the Staff and picked up some
+wine.
+
+In the evening I heard that a certain captain in the gunners went
+reconnoitring and found the battery--it was only one--that had held up
+our advance. He returned to the General, put up his eyeglass and
+drawled, "I say, General, I've found that battery. I shall now deal with
+it." He did. In five minutes it was silenced, and the 14th attacked up
+the Valley of Death, as the men called it. They were repulsed with very
+heavy losses; their reinforcements, which had arrived the day before,
+were practically annihilated.
+
+It was a bad day.
+
+That night it was showery, and I combined vain attempts to get to sleep
+between the showers with a despatch to 2nd Corps at Saacy and another to
+the Division Ammunition Column the other side of Charnesseuil.
+
+Towards morning the rain became heavier, so I took up my bed--_i.e._, my
+greatcoat and ground-sheet--and, finding four free square feet in the
+S.O., had an hour's troubled sleep before I was woken up half an hour
+before dawn to get ready to take an urgent message as soon as it was
+light.
+
+On September 9th, just before dawn--it was raining and very cold--I was
+sent with a message to Colonel Cameron at the top of the hill, telling
+him he might advance. The Germans, it appeared, had retired during the
+night. Returning to the chateau at Mery, I found the company had gone
+on, so I followed them along the Valley of Death to Montreuil.
+
+It was the dismallest morning, dark as if the sun would never rise,
+chequered with little bursts of heavy rain. The road was black with mud.
+The hedges dripped audibly into watery ditches. There was no grass, only
+a plentiful coarse vegetation. The valley itself seemed enclosed by
+unpleasant hills from joy or light. Soldiers lined the road--some were
+dead, contorted, or just stretched out peacefully; some were wounded,
+and they moaned as I passed along. There was one officer who slowly
+moved his head from side to side. That was all he could do. But I could
+not stop; the ambulances were coming up. So I splashed rapidly through
+the mud to the cross-roads north of Montreuil.
+
+To the right was a barn in which the Germans had slept. It was littered
+with their equipment. And in front of it was a derelict motor-car
+dripping in the rain.
+
+At Montreuil we had a scrap of bully with a bit of biscuit for
+breakfast, then we ploughed slowly and dangerously alongside the column
+to Dhuizy, where a house that our artillery had fired was still burning.
+The chalked billeting marks of the Germans were still on the doors of
+the cottages. I had a despatch to take back along the column to the
+Heavies. Grease a couple of inches thick carpeted the road. We all
+agreed that we should be useless in winter.
+
+At Dhuizy the sun came out.
+
+A couple of miles farther on I had a talk with two German
+prisoners--R.A.M.C. They were sick of the war. Summed it up thus:
+
+Wir weissen nichts: wir essen nichts: immer laufen, laufen, laufen.
+
+In bright sunshine we pushed on towards Gandeln. On the way we had a
+bit of lunch, and I left a pipe behind. As there was nothing doing I
+pushed on past the column, waiting for a moment to watch some infantry
+draw a large wood, and arrived with the cavalry at Gandeln, a rakish old
+town at the bottom of an absurdly steep hill. Huggie passed me with a
+message. Returning he told me that the road ahead was pitiably
+disgusting.
+
+You must remember that we were hotly pursuing a disorganised foe. In
+front the cavalry and horse artillery were harassing them for all they
+were worth, and whenever there was an opening our bigger guns would
+gallop up for a trifle of blue murder.
+
+From Gandeln the road rises sharply through woods and then runs on high
+ground without a vestige of cover for two and a half miles into Chezy.
+On this high, open ground our guns caught a German convoy, and we saw
+the result.
+
+First there were a few dead and wounded Germans, all muddied. The men
+would look curiously at each, and sometimes would laugh. Then at the top
+of the hill we came upon some smashed and abandoned waggons. These were
+hastily looted. Men piled themselves with helmets, greatcoats, food,
+saddlery, until we looked a crowd of dishevelled bandits. The German
+wounded watched--they lay scattered in a cornfield, like poppies.
+Sometimes Tommy is not a pleasant animal, and I hated him that
+afternoon. One dead German had his pockets full of chocolate. They
+scrambled over him, pulling him about, until it was all divided.
+
+Just off the road was a small sandpit. Three or four waggons--the
+horses, frightened by our shells, had run over the steep place into the
+sand. Their heads and necks had been forced back into their carcasses,
+and on top of this mash were the splintered waggons. I sat for a long
+time by the well in Chezy and watched the troops go by, caparisoned with
+spoils. I hated war.
+
+Just as the sun was setting we toiled out of Chezy on to an upland of
+cornfields, speckled with grey patches of dead men and reddish-brown
+patches of dead horses. One great horse stood out on a little cliff,
+black against the yellow of the descending sun. It furiously stank. Each
+time I passed it I held my nose, and I was then pretty well used to
+smells. The last I saw of it--it lay grotesquely on its back with four
+stiff legs sticking straight up like the legs of an overturned table--it
+was being buried by a squad of little black men billeted near. They were
+cursing richly. The horse's revenge in death, perhaps, for its
+ill-treatment in life.
+
+It was decided to stay the night at Chezy. The village was crowded,
+dark, and confusing. Three of us found the signal office, and made
+ourselves very comfortable for the night with some fresh straw that we
+piled all over us. The roads were for the first time too greasy for
+night-riding. The rest slept in a barn near, and did not discover the
+signal office until dawn.
+
+We awoke, stiff but rested, to a fine warm morning. It was a quiet day.
+We rode with the column along drying roads until noon through peaceful
+rolling country--then, as there was nothing doing, Grimers and I rode to
+the head of the column, and inquiring with care whether our cavalry was
+comfortably ahead, came to the village of Noroy-sur-Ourcq. We
+"scrounged" for food and found an inn. At first our host, a fat
+well-to-do old fellow, said the Germans had taken everything, but, when
+he saw we really were hungry, he produced sardines, bread, butter,
+sweets, and good red wine. So we made an excellent meal--and were not
+allowed to pay a penny.
+
+He told that the Germans, who appeared to be in great distress, had
+taken everything in the village, though they had not maltreated any one.
+Their horses were dropping with fatigue--that we knew--and their
+officers kept telling their men to hurry up and get quickly on the
+march. At this point they were just nine hours in front of us.
+
+Greatly cheered we picked up the Division again at Chouy, and sat
+deliciously on a grass bank to wait for the others. Just off the road on
+the opposite side was a dead German. Quite a number of men broke their
+ranks to look curiously at him--anything to break the tedious, deadening
+monotony of marching twenty-five miles day after day: as a major of the
+Dorsets said to us as we sat there, "It is all right for us, but it's
+hell for them!"
+
+The Company came up, and we found that in Chouy the Germans had
+overlooked a telephone--great news for the cable detachment. After a
+glance at the church, a gorgeous bit of Gothic that we had shelled, we
+pushed on in the rain to Billy-sur-Ourcq. I was just looking after a
+convenient loft when I was sent back to Chouy to find the Captain's
+watch. A storm was raging down the valley. The road at any time was
+covered with tired foot sloggers. I had to curse them, for they wouldn't
+get out of the way. Soon I warmed and cursed them crudely and glibly in
+four languages. On my return I found some looted boiled eggs and
+captured German Goulasch hot for me. I fed and turned in.
+
+This day my kit was left behind with other unnecessary "tackle," to
+lighten the horses' load. I wish I had known it.
+
+The remaining eggs for breakfast--delicious.
+
+Huggie and I were sent off just before dawn on a message that took us to
+St Remy, a fine church, and Hartennes, where we were given hot tea by
+that great man, Sergeant Croucher of the Divisional Cyclists. I rode
+back to Rozet St Albin, a pleasant name, along a road punctuated with
+dead and very evil-smelling horses. Except for the smell it was a good
+run of about ten miles. I picked up the Division again on the sandy road
+above Chacrise.
+
+Sick of column riding I turned off the main road up a steep hill into
+Ambrief, a desolate black-and-white village totally deserted. It came on
+to pour, but there was a shrine handy. There I stopped until I was
+pulled out by an ancient captain of cuirassiers, who had never seen an
+Englishman before and wanted to hear all about us.
+
+On into Acy, where I decided to head off the Division at Ciry, instead
+of crossing the Aisne and riding straight to Vailly, our proposed H.Q.
+for that night. The decision saved my life, or at least my liberty. I
+rode to Sermoise, a bright little village where the people were actually
+making bread. At the station there was a solitary cavalry man. In Ciry
+itself there was no one. Half-way up the Ciry hill, a sort of dry
+watercourse, I ran into some cavalry and learnt that the Germans were
+holding the Aisne in unexpected strength. I had all but ridden round and
+in front of our own cavalry outposts.
+
+Two miles farther back I found Huggie and one of our brigades. We had a
+bit of bully and biscuit under cover of a haystack, then we borrowed
+some glasses and watched bodies of Germans on the hills the other side
+of the Aisne. It was raining very fast. There was no decent cover, so we
+sat on the leeward side of a mound of sand.
+
+When we awoke the sun was setting gorgeously. Away to the west in the
+direction of Soissons there was a tremendous cannonade. On the hills
+opposite little points of flame showed that the Germans were replying.
+On our right some infantry were slowly advancing in extended order
+through a dripping turnip-field.
+
+The Battle of the Aisne had begun.
+
+We were wondering what to do when we were commandeered to take a message
+down that precipitous hill of Ciry to some cavalry. It was now quite
+dark and still raining. We had no carbide, and my carburetter had
+jibbed, so we decided to stop at Ciry for the night. At the inn we found
+many drinks--particularly some wonderful cherry brandy--and a friendly
+motor-cyclist who told us of a billet that an officer was probably going
+to leave. We went there. Our host was an old soldier, so, after his wife
+had hung up what clothes we dared take off to dry by a red-hot stove, he
+gave us some supper of stewed game and red wine, then made us cunning
+beds with straw, pillows, and blankets. Too tired to thank him we
+dropped asleep.
+
+That, though we did not know it then, was the last night of our little
+Odyssey. We had been advancing or retiring without a break since my
+tragic farewell to Nadine. We had been riding all day and often all
+night. But those were heroic days, and now as I write this in our
+comfortable slack winter quarters, I must confess--I would give anything
+to have them all over again. Now we motor-cyclists are middle-aged
+warriors. Adventures are work. Experiences are a routine. Then, let's be
+sentimental, we were young.
+
+[Illustration: THE AISNE
+(SOISSONS _TO_ VAILLY)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE.
+
+
+I'm going to start by giving you an account of what we thought of the
+military situation during the great marches and the battle of the
+Aisne--for my own use. What happened we shall be able to look up
+afterwards in some lumbersome old history, should we forget, but, unless
+I get down quickly what we thought, it will disappear in
+after-knowledge.
+
+You will remember how the night we arrived on the Aisne Huggie and I
+stretched ourselves on a sand-heap at the side of the road--just above
+Ciry--and watched dim columns of Germans crawling like grey worms up the
+slopes the other side of the valley. We were certain that the old
+Division was still in hot cry on the heels of a rapidly retreating foe.
+News came--I don't know how: you never do--that our transport and
+ammunition were being delayed by the fearsome and lamentable state of
+the roads. But the cavalry was pushing on ahead, and tired infantry were
+stumbling in extended order through the soaked fields on either side of
+us. There was hard gunnery well into the red dusk. Right down the valley
+came the thunder of it, and we began to realise that divisions, perhaps
+even corps, had come up on either flank.
+
+The ancient captain of cuirassiers, who had hauled me out of my shrine
+into the rain that afternoon, made me understand there was a great and
+unknown number of French on our left. From the Order before the Marne I
+had learnt that a French Army had turned the German right, but the first
+news I had had of French on our own right was when one staff-officer
+said in front of me that the French away to the east had been held up.
+That was at Doue.
+
+Our retreat had been solitary. The French, everybody thought, had left
+us in the lurch at Mons and again at Le Cateau, when the cavalry we knew
+to be there refused to help us. For all we knew the French Army had been
+swept off the face of the earth. We were just retiring, and retiring
+before three or four times our own numbers. We were not even supported
+by the 1st Corps on our right. It was smashed, and had all it could do
+to get itself away. We might have been the Ten Thousand.
+
+But the isolation of our desperate retreat dismayed nobody, for we all
+had an unconquerable belief in the future. There must be some French
+somewhere, and in spite--as we thought then--of our better judgments, we
+stuck to the story that was ever being circulated: "We are luring the
+Germans into a trap." It was impressed upon us, too, by "the Div." that
+both at Mons and Le Cateau we were strategically victorious. We had
+given the Germans so hard a knock that they could not pursue us at once;
+we had covered the retirement of the 1st Corps; we had got away
+successfully ourselves. We were sullen and tired victors, never
+defeated. If we retreated, it was for a purpose. If we advanced, the
+Germans were being crushed.
+
+The Germans thought we were beaten, because they didn't realise we knew
+we were victorious the whole time.
+
+I do not say that we were always monotonously cheerful. The night after
+Le Cateau we all thought the game was up,--until the morning, when
+cheerfulness came with the sun. Then we sighed with relief and
+remembered a little bitterly that we were "luring the Germans on."
+
+Many a time I have come across isolated units in hot corners who did
+not see a way out. Yet if a battery or a battalion were hard hit, the
+realisation of local defeat was always accompanied by a fervent faith
+that "the old Fifth" was doing well. Le Cateau is a victory in the
+soldier's calendar.
+
+     Le Cateau and La Bassee,
+     It jolly well serves them right.
+
+We had been ten days or more on the Aisne before we grasped that the
+force opposite us was not merely a dogged, well-entrenched rearguard,
+but a section of the German line.
+
+Soon after we arrived a French cavalry officer had ridden into D.H.Q.,
+and after his departure it was freely rumoured that he had ridden right
+round the German position. News began to trickle in from either flank.
+Our own attacks ceased, and we took up a defensive position. It was the
+beginning of trench-warfare, though owing to the nature of the country
+there were few trenches. Then we heard vaguely that the famous series of
+enveloping movements had begun, but by this time the Division was tired
+to death, and the men were craving for a rest.
+
+Strategy in the ranks--it was elementary stuff pieced vaguely together.
+But perhaps it will interest you at home to know what we thought out
+here on this great little stage. What we did you have heard. Still,
+here is the play as we acted in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Along the Aisne the line of our Division stretched from Venizel to the
+bridge of Conde. You must not think of the river as running through a
+gorge or as meandering along the foot of slopes rising directly from the
+river bank. On the southern side lie the Heights of Champagne,
+practically a tableland. From the river this tableland looks like a
+series of ridges approaching the valley at an angle. Between the
+foothills and the river runs the Soissons-Rheims road, good _pave_, and
+for the most part covered by trees. To the north there is a distance of
+two miles or so from the river to the hills.
+
+Perhaps I shall make this clearer if I take the three main points about
+the position.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_First._ If you are going to put troops on the farther side of the river
+you must have the means of crossing it, and you must keep those means
+intact. The bridges running from left to right of our line were at
+Venizel, Missy, Sermoise, and Conde. The first three were blown up.
+Venizel bridge was repaired sufficiently to allow of light traffic to
+cross, and fifty yards farther down a pontoon-bridge was built fit for
+heavy traffic. Missy was too hot: we managed an occasional ferry. I do
+not think we ever had a bridge at Sermoise. Once when in search of the
+C.R.E. I watched a company of the K.O.S.B. being ferried across under
+heavy rifle fire. The raft was made of ground-sheets stuffed, I think,
+with straw. Conde bridge the Germans always held, or rather neither of
+us held it, but the Germans were very close to it and allowed nobody to
+cross. Just on our side of the bridge was a car containing two dead
+officers. No one could reach them. There they sat until we left, ghastly
+sentinels, and for all I know they sit there still.
+
+Now all communication with troops on the north bank of the river had to
+pass over these bridges, of which Venizel alone was comparatively safe.
+If ever these bridges should be destroyed, the troops on the north bank
+would be irrevocably cut off from supplies of every sort and from
+orders. I often used to wonder what would have happened if the Germans
+had registered accurately upon the bridges, or if the river had risen
+and swept the bridges away.
+
+_Second._ There was an open belt between the river and the villages
+which we occupied--Bucy-le-Long, St Marguerite, Missy. The road that
+wound through this belt was without the veriest trace of cover--so much
+so, that for a considerable time all communication across it was carried
+on by despatch riders, for a cable could never be laid. So if our
+across-the-river brigades had ever been forced to retire in daylight
+they would have been compelled, first to retire two miles over
+absolutely open country, and then to cross bridges of which the
+positions were known with tolerable accuracy to the Germans.
+
+_Third._ On the northern bank four or five spurs came down into the
+plain, parallel with each other and literally at right angles to the
+river. The key to these was a spur known as the Chivres hill or plateau.
+This we found impregnable to the attack of two brigades. It was steep
+and thickly wooded. Its assailants, too, could be heavily enfiladed from
+either flank.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now you have the position roughly. The tactics of our Division were
+simple. In the early days, when we thought that we had merely a
+determined rearguard in front of us, we attacked. Bridges--you will
+remember the tale--were most heroically built. Two brigades (14th and
+15th) crossed the river and halted at the very foot of the hills, where
+they were almost under cover from alien fire. The third brigade was on
+their right in a position I will describe later.
+
+Well, the two brigades attacked, and attacked with artillery support,
+but they could not advance. That was the first phase. Then orders came
+that we were to act on the defensive, and finally of our three brigades,
+one was on the right, one across the river, and one in a second line of
+trenches on the southern bank of the river acted as divisional reserve.
+That for us was the battle of the Aisne. It was hard fighting all
+through.[13]
+
+Under these conditions there was plentiful work for despatch riders. I
+am going to try and describe it for you.
+
+When D.H.Q. are stationary, the work of despatch riders is of two kinds.
+First of all you have to find the positions of the units to which you
+are sent. Often the Signal Office gives you the most exiguous
+information. "The 105th Brigade is somewhere near Ciry," or "The Div.
+Train is at a farm just off the Paris-Bordeaux" road. Starting out with
+these explicit instructions, it is very necessary to remember that they
+may be wrong and are probably misleading. That is not the fault of the
+Signal Office. A Unit changes ground, say from a farm on the road to a
+farm off the road. These two farms are so near each other that there is
+no need to inform the Div. just at present of this change of residence.
+The experienced despatch rider knows that, if he is told the 105th
+Brigade is at 1904 Farm, the Brigade is probably at 1894 Farm, half a
+mile away.
+
+Again, a despatch rider is often sent out after a unit has moved and
+before the message announcing the move has "come through" to the
+Division.
+
+When the Division is advancing or retiring this exploration-work is the
+only work. To find a given brigade, take the place at which it was last
+reported at the Signal Office and assume it was never there. Prefer the
+information you get from your fellow despatch riders. Then find out the
+road along which the brigade is said to be moving. If the brigade may be
+in action, take a road that will bring you to the rear of the brigade.
+If there are troops in front of the brigade, strike for the head of it.
+It is always quicker to ride from van to rear of a brigade than from
+rear to van.
+
+The second kind of work consists in riding along a road already known. A
+clever despatch rider may reduce this to a fine art. He knows exactly at
+which corner he is likely to be sniped, and hurries accordingly. He
+remembers to a yard where the sentries are. If the road is under shell
+fire, he recalls where the shells usually fall, the interval between the
+shells and the times of shelling. For there is order in everything, and
+particularly in German gunnery. Lastly, he does not race along with nose
+on handle-bar. That is a trick practised only by despatch riders who are
+rarely under fire, who have come to a strange and alarming country from
+Corps or Army Headquarters. The experienced motor-cyclist sits up and
+takes notice the whole time. He is able at the end of his ride to give
+an account of all that he has seen on the way.
+
+D.H.Q. were at Serches, a wee village in a hollow at the head of a
+valley. So steeply did the hill rise out of the hollow to the north that
+the village was certainly in dead ground. A fine road went to the west
+along the valley for three miles or so to the Soissons-Rheims road. For
+Venizel you crossed the main road and ran down a little hill through a
+thick wood, terribly dark of nights, to the village; you crossed the
+bridge and opened the throttle.
+
+The first time I rode north from Venizel, Moulders was with me. On the
+left a few hundred yards away an ammunition section that had crossed by
+the pontoon was at full gallop. I was riding fast--the road was
+loathsomely open--but not too fast, because it was greasy. A shell
+pitched a couple of hundred yards off the road, and then others, far
+enough away to comfort me.
+
+A mile on the road bends sharp left and right over the railway and past
+a small factory of some sort. The Germans loved this spot, and would
+pitch shells on it with a lamentable frequency. Soon it became too much
+of a routine to be effective. On shelling-days three shells would be
+dropped one after another, an interval of three minutes, and then
+another three. This we found out and rode accordingly.
+
+A hundred yards past the railway you ride into Bucy-le-Long and safety.
+The road swings sharp to the right, and there are houses all the way to
+St Marguerite.
+
+Once I was riding with despatches from D.H.Q. It was a heavy, misty day.
+As I sprinted across the open I saw shrapnel over St Marguerite, but I
+could not make out whether it was German shrapnel bursting over the
+village or our shrapnel bursting over the hills beyond. I slowed down.
+
+Now, as I have told you, on a motor-cycle, if you are going rapidly, you
+cannot hear bullets or shells coming or even shells bursting unless they
+are very near. Running slowly on top, with the engine barely turning
+over, you can hear everything. So I went slow and listened. Through the
+air came the sharp "woop-wing" of shrapnel bursting towards you, the
+most devilish sound of all. Some prefer the shriek of shrapnel to the
+dolorous wail and deep thunderous crash of high explosive. But nothing
+frightens me so much as the shrapnel-shriek.[14]
+
+Well, as I passed the little red factory I noticed that the shrapnel was
+bursting right over the village, which meant that as 80 per cent of
+shrapnel bullets shoot forward the village was comparatively safe. As a
+matter of fact the street was full of ricochetting trifles.
+
+Transport was drawn up well under cover of the wall and troops were
+marching in single file as near to the transport as possible. Two horses
+were being led down the middle of the street. Just before they reached
+me the nose of one of the horses suddenly was gashed and a stream of
+blood poured out. Just a ricochet, and it decided me. Despatch riders
+have to take care of themselves when H.Q. are eight miles away by road
+and there is no wire. I put my motor-cycle under cover and walked the
+remaining 200 yards.
+
+Coming back I heard some shouting, a momentary silence, then a flare of
+the finest blasphemy. I turned the bend to see an officer holding his
+severed wrist and cursing. He was one of those dashing fellows. He had
+ridden alongside the transport swearing at the men to get a move on. He
+had held up his arm to give the signal when a ricochet took his hand off
+cleanly. His men said not a word,--sat with an air of calm disapproval
+like Flemish oxen.
+
+It was one in the morning and dark on the road when I took my next
+despatch to St Marguerite. Just out of Bucy I passed Moulders, who
+shouted, "Ware wire and horses." Since last I had seen it the village
+had been unmercifully shelled. Where the transport had been drawn up
+there were shattered waggons. Strewn over the road were dead horses, of
+all carcasses the most ludicrously pitiful, and wound in and out of
+them, a witches' web, crawled the wire from the splintered telegraph
+posts. There was not a sound in the village except the gentle thump of
+my engine. I was forced to pull up, that I might more clearly see my
+way between two horses. My engine silent, I could only hear a little
+whisper from the house opposite and a dripping that I did not care to
+understand. Farther on a house had fallen half across the road. I
+scarcely dared to start my engine again in the silence of this desolate
+destruction. Then I could not, because the dripping was my petrol and
+not the gore of some slaughtered animal. A flooded carburettor is a
+nuisance in an unsavoury village.
+
+At the eastern end of St Marguerite the road turns sharply south. This
+is "Hell's Own Corner." From it there is a full and open view of the
+Chivres valley, and conversely those in the Chivres valley can see the
+corner very clearly. When we were acting on the offensive, a section of
+4.5 in. howitzers were put into position just at the side of the road by
+the corner. This the Germans may have discovered, or perhaps it was only
+that the corner presented a tempting target, for they shelled to
+destruction everything within a hundred yards. The howitzers were
+rapidly put out of action though not destroyed, and a small orchard just
+behind them was ploughed, riven, and scarred with high explosive and
+shrapnel.
+
+The day St Marguerite was shelled one of the two brigadiers determined
+to shift his headquarters to a certain farm. N'Soon and Grimers were
+attached to the brigade at the time. "Headquarters" came to the corner.
+N'Soon and Grimers were riding slowly in front. They heard a shell
+coming. Grimers flung himself off his bicycle and dropped like a stone.
+N'Soon opened his throttle and darted forward, foolishly. The shell
+exploded. Grimers' bicycle was covered with branches and he with earth
+and dust. N'Soon for some reason was not touched.
+
+The General and his staff were shelled nearly the whole way to the farm,
+but nobody was hit. The brigade veterinary officer had a theory that the
+safest place was next the General, because generals were rarely hit, but
+that day his faith was shaken, and the next day--I will tell you the
+story--it tottered to destruction.
+
+I had come through St Marguerite the night after the brigade had moved.
+Of course I was riding without a light. I rounded Hell's Own Corner
+carefully, very frightened of the noise my engine was making. A little
+farther on I dismounted and stumbled to the postern-gate of a farm. I
+opened it and went in. A sentry challenged me in a whisper and handed me
+over to an orderly, who led me over the black bodies of men sleeping to
+a lean-to where the General sat with a sheltered light, talking to his
+staff. He was tired and anxious. I delivered my despatch, took the
+receipted envelope and stumbled back to the postern-gate. Silently I
+hauled my motor-cycle inside, then started on my tramp to the General
+who had moved.
+
+After Hell's Own Corner the road swings round again to the east, and
+runs along the foot of the Chivres hill to Missy. A field or so away to
+the left is a thick wood inhabited for the most part by German snipers.
+In the preceding days N'Soon and Sadders had done fine work along this
+road in broad daylight, carrying despatches to Missy.
+
+I was walking, because no motor-cyclist goes by night to a battalion,
+and the noise of a motor-cycle would have advertised the presence of
+brigade headquarters somewhere on the road. It was a joyous tramp of two
+miles into the village of dark, ominous houses. I found a weary
+subaltern who put me on my way, a pitch-black lane between high walls.
+At the bottom of it I stepped upon an officer, who lay across the path
+asleep with his men. So tired was he that he did not wake. On over a
+field to the farm. I delivered my despatch to the Brigade-Major, whose
+eyes were glazed with want of sleep. He spoke to me in the pitiful
+monotone of the unutterably weary. I fed off bully, hot potatoes, bread
+and honey, then turned in.
+
+In the morning I had just finished my breakfast when a shell exploded
+fifty yards behind the farm, and others followed. "Headquarters" turned
+out, and we crawled along a shallow ditch at the side of a rough country
+road until we were two hundred yards from the farm. We endeavoured to
+get into communication with the other brigade by flag, but after the
+first message a shell dropped among the farther signallers and we saw no
+more of them.
+
+Shells began to drop near us. One fellow came uncomfortably close. It
+covered us with dirt as we "froze" to the bottom of the ditch. A little
+scrap of red-hot metal flew into the ground between me and the signal
+sergeant in front of me. I grabbed it, but dropped it because it was so
+hot; it was sent to the signal sergeant's wife and not to you.
+
+We crawled a hundred yards farther along to a place where the ditch was
+a little deeper, and we were screened by some bushes, but I think the
+General's red hat must have been marked down, because for the next hour
+we lay flat listening to the zip-zip of bullets that passed barely
+overhead.
+
+Just before we moved the Germans started to shell Missy with heavy
+howitzers. Risking the bullets, we saw the village crowned with great
+lumps of smoke. Our men poured out of it in more or less extended order
+across the fields. I saw them running, poor little khaki figures, and
+dropping like rabbits to the rifles of the snipers in the wood.
+
+Two hundred yards south of the St Marguerite-Missy road--that is,
+between the road and the ditch in which we were lying--there is a single
+line of railway on a slight embankment. Ten men in a bunch made for the
+cover it afforded. One little man with an enormous pack ran a few yards
+in front. Seven reached the top of the embankment, then three almost
+simultaneously put their hands before their eyes and dropped across the
+rails. The little man ran on until he reached us, wide-eyed, sweaty, and
+breathing in short gasps. The Brigade-Major shouted to him not to come
+along the road but to make across the field. Immediately the little man
+heard the voice of command he halted, stood almost to attention, and
+choked out, "But they're shelling us"--then, without another word he
+turned off across the fields and safely reached cover.
+
+In the ditch we were comfortable if confined, and I was frightened when
+the order came down, "Pass the word for the motor-cyclist." I crawled
+up to the General, received my despatch, and started walking across the
+field. Then I discovered there is a great difference between
+motor-cycling under rifle fire, when you can hear only the very close
+ones, and walking across a heavy turnip-field when you can hear all.
+Two-thirds of the way a sharp zip at the back of my neck and a
+remembrance of the three men stretched across the rails decided me. I
+ran.
+
+At the farm where the other brigade headquarters were stationed I met
+Sadders with a despatch for the general I had just left. When I
+explained to him where and how to go he blenched a little, and the
+bursting of a shell a hundred yards or so away made him jump, but he
+started off at a good round pace. You must remember we were not used to
+carrying despatches on foot.
+
+I rode lazily through St Marguerite and Bucy-le-Long, and turned the
+corner on to the open stretch. There I waited to allow a battery that
+was making the passage to attract as many shells as it liked. The
+battery reached Venizel with the loss of two horses. Then, just as I was
+starting off, a shell plunged into the ground by the little red factory.
+As I knew it to be the first of three I waited again.
+
+At that moment Colonel Seely's car came up, and Colonel Seely himself
+got out and went forward with me to see if the road had been damaged.
+For three minutes the road should have been safe, but the German machine
+became human, and in a couple of minutes Colonel Seely and I returned
+covered with rich red plough and with a singing in our ears. I gave the
+Colonel a couple of hundred yards start, and we sprinted across into the
+safe hands of Venizel.
+
+Beyond Missy, which we intermittently occupied, our line extended along
+the foot of the hills and crossed the Aisne about three-quarters of a
+mile short of Conde bridge--and that brings me to a tale.
+
+One night we were healthily asleep after a full day. I had been "next
+for duty" since ten o'clock, but at two I began to doze, because between
+two and five there is not often work for the despatch rider. At three I
+awoke to much shouting and anxious hullabaloo. The intelligence officer
+was rousing us hurriedly--"All motor-cyclists turn out. Pack up kit.
+Seven wanted at once in the Signal Office."
+
+This meant, firstly, that Divisional Headquarters were to move at once,
+in a hurry, and by night; secondly, that the same despatch was to be
+sent simultaneously to every unit in the Division. I asked somebody to
+get my kit together, and rushed upstairs to the Signal Office. There on
+the table I saw the fateful wire.
+
+"Germans entrenched south side of Conde bridge and are believed to be
+crossing in large numbers." I was given a copy of this message to take
+to the 15th Brigade, then at St Marguerite. Away on the road at full
+speed I thought out what this meant. The enemy had broken through our
+line--opposite Conde there were no reserves--advance parties of the
+Germans might even now be approaching headquarters--large numbers would
+cut us off from the Division on our right and would isolate the brigade
+to which I was going; it would mean another Le Cateau.
+
+I tore along to Venizel, and slowing down at the bridge shouted the news
+to the officer in charge--full speed across the plain to Bucy, and
+caring nothing for the sentries' shouts, on to St Marguerite. I dashed
+into the general's bedroom and aroused him. Almost before I had arrived
+the general and his brigade-major--both in pyjamas--were issuing
+commands and writing messages. Sleepy and amazed orderlies were sent out
+at the double. Battalion commanders and the C.R.E. were summoned.
+
+I started back for D.H.Q. with an acknowledgment, and rattling through
+the village came out upon the plain.
+
+Over Conde bridge an ochreous, heavy dawn broke sullenly. There was no
+noise of firing to tell me that the men of our right brigade were making
+a desperate resistance to a fierce advance. A mile from Serches I passed
+a field-ambulance loaded up for instant flight; the men were standing
+about in little groups talking together, as if without orders. At
+Headquarters I found that a despatch rider had been sent hot-foot to
+summon two despatch riders, who that night were with the corps, and
+others to every unit. Everybody carried the same command--load up and be
+ready to move at a moment's notice.
+
+Orders to move were never sent. Our two ghastly sentinels still held the
+bridge. It was a SCARE.
+
+The tale that we heard at the time was the tale of a little German
+firing--a lost patrol of ours, returning by an unauthorised road,
+mistaken in the mist for Germans--a verbal message that had gone wrong.
+As for the lieutenant who--it was said--first started the hare, his name
+was burnt with blasphemy for days and days. The only men who came out of
+it well were some of our cyclists, who, having made their nightly patrol
+up to the bridge, returned just before dawn to D.H.Q. and found the
+Division trying to make out that it had not been badly frightened.
+
+I did not hear what really happened at the bridge that night until I
+published my paper, "The Battle of the Aisne," in the May 'Blackwood.'
+Here is the story as I had it from the officer principally concerned:--
+
+Conde bridge was under our control by shell-fire alone, so that we were
+obliged to patrol its unpleasant neighbourhood by night. For this
+purpose an "officer's patrol" was organised (in addition to the
+"standing patrol" provided by the Cyclists) and supplied every night by
+different battalions. So many conflicting reports were received nightly
+about the bridge that the officer who told me the story was appointed
+Brigade Patrolling Officer.
+
+He established himself in a certain wood, and on the night in question
+worked right up beyond Conde bridge--until he found a burning house
+about 200 yards beyond the bridge on the south side of it. In the flare
+of the house he was surprised to discover Germans entrenched in an old
+drain on the British side of the river. He had unknowingly passed this
+body of the enemy.
+
+He heard, too, a continuous stream of Germans in the transport marching
+through the woods towards the bridge. Working his way back, he reported
+the matter personally to the Brigadier of the 13th, who sent the famous
+message to the Division.
+
+It appears that the Germans had come down to fill their water-carts that
+night, and to guard against a surprise attack had pushed forward two
+platoons across the bridge into the drain. Unfortunately one of our
+patrols disobeyed its orders that night and patrolled a forbidden
+stretch of road. The officer shot two of these men in the dark.
+
+Three days later the outpost company on Vesle bridge of the Aisne was
+surrounded, and, later still, Conde bridge passed out of our artillery
+control, and was finally crossed by the Germans.
+
+I have written of this famous scare of Conde bridge in detail, not
+because it was characteristic, but because it was exceptional. It is the
+only scare we ever had in our Division, and amongst those who were on
+the Aisne, and are still with the Division, it has become a phrase for
+encouragement--"Only another Conde."
+
+During the first days on this monotonous river, the days when we
+attacked, the staff of our right brigade advanced for a time into open
+country and took cover behind the right haystack of three. To this
+brigade Huggie took a message early one morning, and continued to take
+messages throughout the day because--this was his excuse--he knew the
+road. It was not until several months later that I gathered by chance
+what had happened on that day, for Huggie, quite the best despatch rider
+in our Division, would always thwart my journalistic curiosity by
+refusing resolutely to talk about himself. The rest of us swopped yarns
+of an evening.
+
+These haystacks were unhealthy: so was the approach to them. First one
+haystack was destroyed. The brigade went to the next. This second was
+blown to bits. The staff took refuge behind the third. In my letters I
+have told you of the good things the other despatch riders in our
+Division have done, but to keep up continuous communication all day with
+this be-shelled and refugee brigade was as fine a piece of despatch
+riding as any. It received its proper reward, as you know.
+
+Afterwards the brigade emigrated to a hillside above Ciry, and remained
+there. Now the German gunner in whose sector Ciry was included should
+not be dismissed with a word. He was a man of uncertain temper and
+accurate shooting, for in the first place he would shell Ciry for a few
+minutes at any odd time, and in the second he knocked a gun out in three
+shells and registered accurately, when he pleased, upon the road that
+led up a precipitous hill to the edge of the Serches hollow. On this
+hill he smashed some regimental transport to firewood and killed a dozen
+horses, and during one of his sudden shellings of the village blew a
+house to pieces just as a despatch rider, who had been told the village
+that morning was healthy, rode by.
+
+You must not think that we were for ever scudding along, like the
+typical "motor-cyclist scout" in the advertisements, surrounded with
+shells. There was many a dull ride even to Bucy-le-Long. An expedition
+to the Div. Train (no longer an errant and untraceable vagabond) was
+safe and produced jam. A ride to Corps Headquarters was only dangerous
+because of the innumerable and bloodthirsty sentries surrounding that
+stronghold.
+
+One afternoon a report came through to the Division that a motor-car lay
+derelict at Missy. So "the skipper" called for two volunteers who should
+be expert mechanics. Divisional Signal companies were not then provided
+with cars, and if the C.O. wished to go out to a brigade, which might be
+up to or over eight miles away, he was compelled to ride a horse,
+experiment with a motor-cycle that was probably badly missed by the
+despatch riders, or borrow one of the staff cars. Huggie and the elder
+Cecil volunteered.
+
+As soon as it was dusk they rode down to Sermoise, and crossing by the
+ferry--it was perilous in the dark--made their way with difficulty
+across country to Missy, which was then almost in front of our lines.
+They found the car, and examining it discovered that to outward
+appearance it was sound,--a great moment when after a turn or two of the
+handle the engine roared into the darkness, but the noise was alarming
+enough because the Germans were none too far away.
+
+They started on their journey home--by St Marguerite and Venizel. Just
+after they had left the village the beam of an alien searchlight came
+sweeping along the road. Before the glare had discovered their nakedness
+they had pulled the car to the side of the road under the shelter of the
+hedge nearest the Germans, and jumping down had taken cover. By all the
+rules of the game it was impossible to drive a car that was not exactly
+silent along the road from Missy to Hell's Own Corner. The searchlight
+should have found them, and the fire of the German snipers should have
+done the rest. But their luck was in, and they made no mistakes.
+Immediately the beam had passed they leaped on to the car and tore
+scathless into St Marguerite and so back to the Division.
+
+After its capture the car was exhibited with enormous pride to all that
+passed by. We should not have been better pleased if we had captured the
+whole Prussian Guard. For prisoners disappear and cannot always be shown
+to prove the tale. The car was an [Greek: aei ktema].
+
+In the morning we rode down into Sermoise for the motor-cycles. Sermoise
+had been shelled to pieces, but I shall never forget a brave and
+obstinate inhabitant who, when a shell had gone through his roof and
+demolished the interior of his house, began to patch his roof with
+bully-tins and biscuit-tins that he might at least have shelter from the
+rain.
+
+Elated with our capture of the car we scented greater victories. We
+heard of a motor-boat on the river near Missy, and were filled with
+visions of an armoured motor-boat, stuffed with machine-guns, plying up
+and down the Aisne. Huggie and another made the excursion. The boat was
+in an exposed and altogether unhealthy position, but they examined it,
+and found that there was no starting-handle. In the village forge, which
+was very completely fitted up, they made one that did not fit, and then
+another, but however much they coaxed, the engine would not start. So
+regretfully they left it.
+
+To these adventures there was a quiet background of uncomfortable but
+pleasant existence. Life on the Aisne was like a "reading party"--only
+instead of working at our books we worked at soldiering.
+
+The night that Huggie and I slept down at Ciry, the rest of the despatch
+riders, certain that we were taken, encamped at Ferme d'Epitaphe, for
+the flooded roads were impassable. There we found them in the morning,
+and discovered they had prepared the most gorgeous stew of all my
+recollection.
+
+Now, to make a good stew is a fine art, for a stew is not merely a
+conglomeration of bully and vegetables and water boiled together until
+it looks nice. First the potatoes must be cut out to a proper size and
+put in; of potatoes there cannot be too many. As for the vegetables, a
+superfluity of carrots is a burden, and turnips should be used with a
+sparing hand. A full flavour of leek is a great joy. When the vegetables
+are nearly boiled, the dixie should be carefully examined by all to see
+if it is necessary to add water. If in doubt spare the water, for a rich
+thick gravy is much to be desired. Add bully, and get your canteens
+ready.
+
+This particular stew made by Orr was epic. At all other good stews it
+was recalled and discussed, but never did a stew come up to the stew
+that we so scrupulously divided among us on the bright morning of Sept.
+12, 1914, at Ferme d'Epitaphe, above Serches.
+
+Later in the day we took over our billet, a large bicycle shed behind
+the school in which D.H.Q. were installed. The front of it was open, the
+floor was asphalt, the roof dripped, and we shared it with the
+Divisional Cyclists. So close were we packed that you could not turn in
+your sleep without raising a storm of curses, and if you were called out
+of nights you were compelled to walk boldly over prostrate bodies,
+trusting to luck that you did not step on the face of a man who woke
+suddenly and was bigger than yourself.
+
+On the right of our dwelling was a little shed that was once used as a
+guard-room. A man and woman were brought in under suspicion of
+espionage. The woman was put in the shed. There she shrieked the night
+through, shouted for her husband (he had an ugly-sounding name that we
+could not understand), and literally tore her hair. The language of the
+Cyclists was an education even to the despatch riders, who once had been
+told by their Quartermaster-Sergeant that they left the cavalry
+standing. Finally, we petitioned for her removal, and once again slept
+peacefully. The Court of Inquiry found the couple were not spies, but
+unmarried. So it married them and let them go.
+
+The Cyclists were marvellous and indefatigable makers of tea. At any
+unearthly hour you might be gently shaken by the shoulder and a voice
+would whisper--
+
+"'Ave a drop o' tea--real 'ot and plenty o' sugar."
+
+Never have I come back from a night ride without finding a couple of
+cyclists squatting out in the gloom round a little bright fire of their
+own making, with some fine hot tea. Wherever they go may they never want
+a drink!
+
+And never shall I forget that fine bit of roast pork my friend Sergeant
+Croucher insisted on sharing with me one evening! I had not tasted fresh
+meat for weeks.
+
+George was our unofficial Quartermaster. He was and is a great man,
+always cheerful, able to coax bread, vegetables, wine, and other
+luxuries out of the most hardened old Frenchwoman; and the French,
+though ever pathetically eager to do anything for us, always charged a
+good round price. Candles were a great necessity, and could not be
+bought, but George always had candles for us. I forget at the moment
+whether they were for "Le General French, qui arrive," or "Les pauvres,
+pauvres, blesses." On two occasions George's genius brought him into
+trouble, for military law consists mainly of the commandment--
+
+"Thou shalt not allow thyself to be found out."
+
+We were short of firewood. So George discovered that his engine wanted a
+little tuning, and started out on a voyage of discovery. Soon he came
+upon a heap of neatly cut, neatly piled wood. He loaded up until he
+heard shouts, then fled. That night we had a great fire, but in the
+morning came tribulation. The shouts were the shouts of the C.R.E. and
+the wood was an embryonic bridge. Severely reprimanded.
+
+Then there was the Honey Question. There were bees in the village and we
+had no honey. The reputation of George was at stake. So one night we
+warily and silently approached some hives with candles; unfortunately we
+were interfered with by the military police. Still an expedition into
+the hedgerows and woods always had an excuse in time of war, and we made
+it.
+
+The village of Acy, high on the hill above the road to Venizel, was the
+richest hunting-ground. First, there was a bread-shop open at certain
+hours. George was often late, and, disdaining to take his place in the
+long line of those who were not despatch riders, would march straight in
+and demand bread for one of his two worthy charities. When these were
+looked upon with suspicion he engineered a very friendly understanding
+with the baker's wife.
+
+Then there was a dark little shop where you could buy good red wine, and
+beyond it a farmer with vegetables to sell. But his greatest find was
+the chateau, which clung to the edge of the hill and overlooked the
+valley of the Aisne to Conde Fort and the Hill of Chivres.
+
+Searching one morning amongst a pile of captured and derelict stuff we
+discovered a canvas bath. Now, not one of us had had a bath since Havre,
+so we made arrangements. Three of us took the bath up to the chateau,
+then inhabited by a caretaker and his wife. They brought us great pails
+of hot water, and for the first time in a month we were clean. Then we
+had tea and talked about the Germans who had passed through. The German
+officer, the old woman told us, had done them no harm, though he had
+seized everything without paying a sou. Just before he left bad news was
+brought to him. He grew very angry, and shouted to her as he rode off--
+
+"You shall suffer for this when we return;" but she laughed and shouted
+back at him, mocking--
+
+"When you return!"
+
+And then the English came.
+
+After tea we smoked our pipes in the terraced garden, watched the
+Germans shelling one of our aeroplanes, examined the German lines, and
+meditated in safety on the war just like newspaper correspondents.
+
+It was in Serches itself that George received the surprise of his life.
+He was after potatoes, and seeing a likely-looking old man pass, D.H.Q.
+ran after him. In his best French--"Avez-vous pommes-de-terre a vendre?"
+The old man turned round, smiled, and replied in broadest Yorkshire,
+"Wanting any 'taters?" George collapsed.
+
+It seems that the old fellow had settled in Serches years and years
+before. He had a very pretty daughter, who spoke a delectable mixture of
+Yorkshire and the local dialect. Of course she was suspected of being a
+spy--in fact, probably was--so the military police were set to watch
+her,--a job, I gathered later from one of them, much to their liking.
+
+Our life on the Aisne, except for little exciting episodes, was restful
+enough. We averaged, I should think, a couple of day messages and one
+each night, though there were intermittent periods of high pressure. We
+began to long for the strenuous first days, and the Skipper, finding
+that we were becoming unsettled, put us to drill in our spare time and
+gave some of us riding lessons. Then came rumours of a move to a
+rest-camp, probably back at Compiegne. The 6th Division arrived to take
+over from us, or so we were told, and Rich and Cuffe came over with
+despatches. We had not seen them since Chatham. They regarded us as
+veterans, and we told them the tale.
+
+One afternoon some artillery of this division came through the valley.
+They were fine and fresh, but not a single one of us believed they
+equalled ours. There was a line of men to watch them pass, and everybody
+discovered a friend until practically at every stirrup there was a man
+inquiring after a pal, answering questions, and asking what they thought
+in England, and how recruiting was going. The air rang with crude,
+great-hearted jokes. We motor-cyclists stood aside just criticising the
+guns and men and horses. We felt again that shyness we had felt at
+Chatham in front of the professional soldier. Then we remembered that we
+had been through the Retreat and the Advance, and went back to tea
+content.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] I do not pretend for a moment that all these details are
+meticulously accurate. They are what I knew or thought I knew at the
+time this was written.
+
+[14] Curiously enough, months after this was written the author was
+wounded by shrapnel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE MOVE TO THE NORTH.
+
+
+We left Serches at dusk with little regret and pushed on over the hill
+past Ferme d'Epitaphe of gluttonous memory, past the Headquarter clerks,
+who were jogging peacefully along on bicycles, down the other side of
+the hill, and on to the village of Maast.
+
+Headquarters were in a curious farm. One side of its court was formed by
+a hill in which there were caves--good shelter for the men. There was
+just one run that night to Corps H.Q. in a chateau three miles farther
+on.
+
+The morning was clear and sunny. A good, lazy breakfast preluded a great
+wash. Then we chatted discreetly with a Paris _midinette_ at the gate of
+the farm. Though not in Flanders, she was of the Flemish type,--bright
+colouring, high cheek-bones, dark eyes. On these little social
+occasions--they came all too rarely; that is why I always mention
+them--there was much advantage in being only a corporal. Officers, even
+Staff Officers, as they passed threw at us a look of admiration and
+envy. A salute was cheap at the price.
+
+In the afternoon there was a run, and when I returned I found that the
+rest-camp rumour had been replaced by two others--either we were going
+into action immediately a little farther along the line beyond Soissons,
+or we were about to make a dash to Ostend for the purpose of outflanking
+the Germans.
+
+We moved again at dusk, and getting clear of the two brigades with H.Q.
+rode rapidly twenty miles across country, passing over the road by which
+we had advanced, to Longpont, a big dark chateau set in a wood and with
+a French sentry at the gate. Our third brigade was trekking away into
+the darkness as we came in. We slept in a large room on straw
+mattresses--very comforting to the bones.
+
+The morning was again gorgeous, and again we breakfasted late and well.
+The chateau we discovered to be monumental, and beside it, set in a
+beautiful garden, was a ruined chapel, where a service was held--the
+first we had been able to attend since the beginning of the war.
+
+Our host, an old man, thin and lithe, and dressed in shiny black, came
+round during the day to see that we had all we needed. We heard a
+tale--I do not know how true it was--that the Crown Prince had stayed at
+the chateau. He had drunk much ancient and good wine, and what he had
+not drunk he had taken away with him, together with some objects of art.
+The chateau was full of good things.
+
+During the day I had a magnificent run of forty miles over straight dry
+roads to Hartennes, where, if you will remember, that great man,
+Sergeant Croucher of the cyclists, had given us tea, and on to Chacrise
+and Maast. It was the first long and open run I had had since the days
+of the retreat, when starting from La Pommeraye I had ridden through the
+forest to Compiegne in search of the Divisional Train.
+
+Just after I had returned we started off again--at dusk. I was sent
+round to a place, the name of which I cannot remember, to a certain
+division; then I struck north along a straight road through the forest
+to Villers-Cotterets. The town was crammed with French motor-lorries and
+crowded with French troops, who greeted me hilariously as I rode through
+to Veze.
+
+There we slept comfortably in the lodge of the chateau, all, that is,
+except Grimers, who had been seized with a puncture just outside the
+main hotel in Villers-Cotterets.
+
+In the morning I had a fine run to a brigade at Bethancourt, the little
+village, you will remember, where we lunched off an excellent omelette,
+and convinced the populace, with the help of our host, that the Germans
+would come no farther.
+
+While I was away the rest discovered some excellent white wine in the
+cellar of the lodge, and before starting again at dusk we made a fine
+meal. Cecil and I remained after the others had gone, and when the wife
+of the lodge-keeper came in and expressed her utter detestation of all
+troops, we told her that we were shedding our blood for France, and
+offered her forgetfully a glass of her own good wine.
+
+That night we slept at Bethisy St Martin. On the retreat, you will
+remember, the lord of the chateau had given some of the despatch riders
+dinner, before they learnt that D.H.Q. had been diverted to
+Crecy-en-Valois. He recognised us with joy, allowed us to take things
+from the kitchen, and in the morning hunted out for us a tennis set.
+Four of us who were not on duty played a great game on a very passable
+gravel court.
+
+We now heard that "the Division" was convinced that we were going to
+make a dash for Ostend, and rumour seemed to crystallise into truth
+when orders came that we were to entrain that night at Pont St Maxence.
+
+The despatch riders rode ahead of the column, and received a joyous
+welcome in the town. We stalked bravely into a cafe, and drank loud and
+hearty toasts with some friendly but rather drunk French soldiers.
+Gascons they were, and d'Artagnans all, from their proper boasting--the
+heart of a lion and the cunning of a fox, they said. One of us was
+called into a more sober chamber to drink ceremonious toasts in
+champagne with their officers. In the street another of us--I would not
+give even his initial--selecting the leading representative of young,
+demure, and ornamental maidenhood, embraced her in the middle of the
+most admiring crowd I have ever seen, while the rest of us explained to
+a half-angry mother that her daughter should be proud and happy--as
+indeed she was--to represent the respectable and historic town of Pont
+St Maxence.
+
+Then, amidst shrieks and cheers and cries of "Brave Tommy" and "We love
+you," the despatch riders of the finest and most famous of all Divisions
+rode singing to the station, where we slept peacefully on straw beside a
+large fire until the train came in and the Signal Company arrived.
+
+Our entraining at Pont St Maxence began with a carouse and ended with a
+cumulative disappointment. In the middle was the usual wait, a tiresome
+but necessary part of all military evolutions. To entrain a Signal
+Company sounds so simple. Here is the company--there is the train. But
+first comes the man-handling of cable-carts on to trucks that were built
+for the languid conveyance of perambulators. Then follows a little
+horseplay, and only those who, like myself, regard horses as
+unmechanical and self-willed instruments of war, know how terrifying a
+sight and how difficult a task the emboxing of a company's horses can
+be. Motor-cycles are heavy and have to be lifted, but they do not make
+noises and jib and rear, and look every moment as if they were going to
+fall backward on to the interested spectator.
+
+We despatch riders fetched a great deal of straw and made ourselves
+comfortable in one of those waggons that are marked outside, with such
+splendid optimism--
+
+     _Chevaux_ . . . .   8
+     _Hommes_  . . . .  40-5
+
+With our friend the Post-Sergeant and his underling there were roughly a
+dozen of us and no superfluity of space, but, seeing men wandering
+fiercely up and down the train under the command of our Sergeant-Major,
+we took in a H.Q. clerk. This ruffled us, but it had to be done. The
+Sergeant-Major came to our waggon. We stood at the door and pointed out
+to him that we had in our waggon not only all the despatch riders, but
+also the whole of the Postal and Headquarters Staffs. He said nothing to
+us--only told ten more men to get in. Finally we were twenty-five in
+all, with full equipment. Thinking of the 40-5 we settled down and
+managed to effect a compromise of room which, to our amazement, left us
+infinitely more comfortable than we had been in the III^{me} coming up
+from Havre to Landrecies.
+
+The train shuffled out of the station just before dawn. We slept a bit,
+and then, just as it was getting light, started our pipes and began to
+talk of the future.
+
+The general opinion favoured Ostend, though a sergeant hazarded that we
+were going to be shipped swiftly across to England to defend the East
+Coast. This suggestion was voted impossible and tactless--at least, we
+didn't put it quite like that. Ostend it was going to be--train to
+Abbeville, and then boat to Ostend, and a rapid march against the German
+flank.
+
+The discussion was interrupted by somebody saying he had heard from
+somebody who had been told by his Major, that 60,000 Germans had been
+killed in the last two days, Von Kluck had been killed by a lucky shell,
+and the Crown Prince had committed suicide. We were bringing the
+cynicism of youth to bear on the trustfulness of a mature mercenary when
+the train arrived at Amiens.
+
+Some washed. Some meditated on a train of French wounded and another
+train of Belgian refugees, humble and pitiful objects, very smelly. Two,
+not waiting for orders, rushed to the buffet and bought beer and
+sardines and chocolate and bread. One of these was cut off from his
+waggon by a long goods train that passed through, but he knew the ways
+of military trains, waited till the goods had passed, then ran after us
+and caught us up after a mile's jog-trot. The good people of Amiens, who
+had not so very long before been delivered from the Germans, were
+exceedingly affectionate, and threw us fruit, flowers, and kisses. Those
+under military age shrieked at the top of their shrill little trebles--
+
+Engleesh--Tipperary--Biskeet--Biskeet--Souvenir.
+
+We have never understood the cry of "Biskeet." The fat little fellows
+were obviously well nourished. Perhaps, dog-like, they buried their
+biscuits with a thought for the time when the English should be
+forgotten and hunger should take their place as something very present.
+
+So joyously we were rushed north at about five miles an hour, or eight
+kilometres per hour, which sounds better. Early in the afternoon we came
+to Abbeville, a hot and quiet station, and, with the aid of some London
+Scottish, disembarked. From these Scots we learnt that the French were
+having a rough time just north of Arras, that train-load upon train-load
+of wounded had come through, that our Corps (the 2nd) was going up to
+help.
+
+So even now we do not know whether we really were going to Ostend and
+were diverted to the La Bassee district to help the French who had got
+themselves into a hole, or whether Ostend was somebody's little tale.
+
+We rode through the town to the Great Barracks, where we were given a
+large and clean ward. The washing arrangements were sumptuous and we had
+truckle-beds to sleep upon, but the sanitation, as everywhere in France,
+was vile. We kicked a football about on the drill-ground. Then some of
+us went down into the town, while the rest of us waited impatiently for
+them to come back, taking a despatch or two in the meanwhile.
+
+From the despatch rider's point of view Abbeville is a large and
+admiring town, with good restaurants and better baths. These baths were
+finer than the baths of Havre--full of sweet-scented odours and the
+deliciously intoxicating fumes of good soap and plenteous boiling-water.
+
+In a little restaurant we met some friends of the 3rd Division and a
+couple of London Scots, who were getting heartily sick of the L. of C.,
+though taking prisoners round the outskirts of Paris had, I gather, its
+charm even for the most ardent warriors.
+
+In the morning there was parade, a little football, and then a stroll
+into the town. I had just finished showing an Intelligence Officer how
+to get a belt back on to the pulley of his motor-cycle when Cecil met me
+and told me we were to move north that evening.
+
+We had a delectable little tea, bought a map or two, and then strolled
+back to the barracks. In half an hour we were ready to move off, kit
+piled high upon our carriers, looking for all the world (said our C.O.)
+like those funny little animals that carry their houses upon their backs
+and live at the bottom of ponds. Indeed it was our boast that--such was
+our ingenuity--we were able to carry more kit than any regimental
+officer.
+
+It was dusk when N'Soon and I pushed off,--we had remained behind to
+deal with messages that might come in foolishly after the Division had
+left. We took the great highroad to Calais, and, carefully passing the
+General, who was clattering along with his staff and an escort of
+Hussars, we pulled up to light our lamps at a little estaminet with
+glowing red blinds just like the blinds of certain hospitable taverns in
+the city of Oxford. The coincidence was so remarkable that we were
+compelled to enter.
+
+We found a roaring, leaping log-fire, a courteous old Frenchman who
+drank our healths, an immense omelette, some particularly good coffee,
+and the other despatch riders.
+
+That night it was freezing hard. With our chairs drawn in close to the
+fire, a glass of something to keep the cold out ready to hand, and pipes
+going strong, we felt sorry for the general and his escort who, probably
+with chilled lips and numbed fingers, jogged resoundingly through the
+village street.
+
+Twenty minutes later we took the road, and soon, pretending that we had
+lost our way, again passed the general--and lost our way, or at least
+rode well past our turning. Finally, colder than we had ever been
+before, we reached the Chateau at Gueschart. There we found a charming
+and hospitable son of the house and a pleasantly adoring lad. With
+their aid we piled the floor of the harness-room with straw, and those
+of us who were not on duty slept finely.
+
+From the dawn of the next morning we were working at top pressure right
+through the day, keeping in touch with the brigades which were billeted
+in villages several miles distant.
+
+Late in the afternoon we discovered we were very short of petrol, so I
+was sent off to Crecy in our famous captured car, with a requisition. We
+arrived amidst cheers. I strode into the nearest garage and demanded 100
+litres of petrol. It was humbly brought and placed in the car: then I
+sent boys flying round the town for jam and bread and butter, and in the
+meantime we entertained the crowd by showing them a German helmet. I
+explained volubly that my bandaged fingers--there was an affair of
+outposts with an ambulance near Serches--were the work of shrapnel, and
+they nearly embraced me. A boy came back and said there was no jam, so
+the daughter of the house went to her private cupboard and brought me
+out two jars of jam she had made herself, and an enormous glass of wine.
+We drove off amidst more cheers, to take the wrong road out of the town
+in our great excitement.
+
+The brigades moved that night; headquarters remained at Gueschart until
+dawn, when the general started off in his car with two of us attendant.
+
+Now before the war a motor-cyclist would consider himself ill-used if he
+were forced to take a car's dust for a mile or so. Your despatch rider
+was compelled to follow in the wake of a large and fast Daimler for
+twenty-five miles, and at the end of it he did not know which was him
+and which dust.
+
+We came upon the 15th, shivering in the morning cold, and waiting for
+some French motor-buses. Then we rushed on to St Pol, which was crammed
+full of French transport, and on to Chateau Bryas. Until the other
+despatch riders came up there was no rest for the two of us that had
+accompanied the car. The roads, too, were blocked with refugees flying
+south from Lille and men of military age who had been called up. Once
+again we heard the distant sound of guns--for the first time since we
+had been at the Chateau of Longpont.
+
+At last we were relieved for an hour, and taking possession of a kitchen
+we fried some pork-chops with onions and potatoes. It was grand. We
+washed them down with coffee, and went back to duty. For the remainder
+of that day and for the whole of the night there was no rest for us.
+
+At dawn the Division marched in column of route north-east towards the
+sound of the guns.
+
+Half of us at a time slipped away and fed in stinking taverns--but the
+food was good.
+
+I cannot remember a hotter day, and we were marching through a
+thickly-populated mining district--the villages were uncomfortably like
+those round Dour. The people were enthusiastic and generous with their
+fruit and with their chocolate. It was very tiring work, because we were
+compelled to ride with the Staff, for first one of us was needed and
+then another to take messages up and down the column or across country
+to brigades and divisions that were advancing along roads parallel to
+ours. The old Division was making barely one mile an hour. The road was
+blocked by French transport coming in the opposite direction, by 'buses
+drawn up at the side of the road, and by cavalry that, trekking from the
+Aisne, crossed our front continuously to take up their position away on
+the left.
+
+At last, about three o'clock in the afternoon, we reached the outskirts
+of Bethune. The sound of the guns was very near, and to the east of the
+town we could see an aeroplane haloed in bursting shrapnel.
+
+The Staff took refuge first in an unsavoury field and afterwards in a
+little house. Despatch after despatch until evening--and then, ordered
+to remain behind to direct others, and cheered by the sight of our most
+revered and most short-sighted staff-officer walking straight over a
+little bridge into a deep, muddy, and stinking ditch, I took refuge in
+the kitchen and experienced the discreeter pleasures of "the Force." The
+handmaidens brought coffee, and brushed me and washed me and talked to
+me. I was sorry when the time came for me to resume my beat, or rather
+to ride with Cecil after the Division.
+
+We passed some Turcos, happy-looking children but ill companions in a
+hostile country, and some Spahis with flowing burnous, who looked
+ridiculously out of place, and then, after a long search--it was dark on
+the road and very cold--we found the Division.
+
+I dined off a maconochie, and was wondering whether I dare lie down to
+sleep, when I was called out to take a message to and remain at the 13th
+Brigade. It was a bad night. Never was a man so cold in his life, and
+the brigade had taken up its quarters in a farm situated in the centre
+of a very labyrinth of country roads. But I had four hours' sleep when I
+got there, while the others were up all the night.
+
+There was no hurry in the morning. The orders were to join the Division
+at a bridge just outside Bethune, a point which they could not possibly
+reach before ten. So I got up late and had a glorious meal of soup,
+omelette, and fruit in the town, waited on by a most excellent flapper
+who wanted to know everything about everything. I reported at the Signal
+Office, then occupying the lodge of the town cemetery, and was sent off
+to catch the Devons. At the village where I waited for them I found some
+Cuirassiers, genial fellows; but living helios in the burning sun. When
+I returned the Division had moved along the north bank of the Canal to
+Beuvry Station. The post picked us up, and in the joyous possession of
+two parcels and some letters I unpacked my kit. We all settled down on
+some moderately clean straw in the waiting-room of the station, and
+there we remained for three full weeks.
+
+Men talk of the battle of Ypres[15] as the finest achievement of the
+British Army. There was one brigade there that had a past. It had fought
+at Mons and Le Cateau, and then plugged away cheerfully through the
+Retreat and the Advance. What was left of it had fought stiffly on the
+Aisne. Some hard marching, a train journey, more hard marching, and it
+was thrown into action at La Bassee. There it fought itself to a
+standstill. It was attacked and attacked until, shattered, it was
+driven back one wild night. It was rallied, and turning on the enemy
+held them. More hard marching--a couple of days' rest, and it staggered
+into action at Ypres, and somehow--no one knows how--it held its bit of
+line. A brigade called by the same name, consisting of the same
+regiments, commanded by the same general, but containing scarce a man of
+those who had come out in August, marched very proudly away from Ypres
+and went--not to rest--but to hold another bit of the line.
+
+And this brigade was not the Guards Brigade. There were no picked men in
+the brigade. It contained just four ordinary regiments of the line--the
+Norfolks, the Bedfords, the Cheshires, and the Dorsets. What the 15th
+Brigade did, other brigades have done.
+
+Now little has been heard of this fighting round La Bassee in October,
+so I wish I could tell you about it in more detail than I can. To my
+thinking it was the finest fighting I have seen.
+
+You will understand, then, how difficult it is for me to describe the
+country round La Bassee. I might describe it as it appeared to me when
+first we arrived--sunny and joyous, with many little farms and thick
+hedges and rare factories--or as I saw it last, on a horrible yellowish
+evening, shattered and black and flooded and full of ghosts.
+
+Now when first we arrived news filtered through to us that La Bassee was
+held only by a division of Jaegers, plentifully supplied with artillery
+and machine guns. I believe this was the fact. The Jaegers held on
+stubbornly until reinforcements came up. Instead of attacking we were
+hard pressed, and had more than we could do to prevent the Germans in
+their turn from breaking through. Indeed we had not a kick left in us
+when the Division was relieved.
+
+At the beginning it looked so simple. The British Army was wheeling
+round on to the German right flank. We had the shortest distance to go,
+because we formed the extreme British right. On our left was the 3rd
+Division, and beyond the 3rd was the First Corps. On the left of the
+First the Third Corps was sweeping on to Armentieres.
+
+Then Antwerp fell suddenly. The First Corps was rushed up to help the
+Seventh Division which was trying to guard the right flank of the
+Belgians in retirement along the coast. Thus some sort of very weak line
+was formed from the sea to La Bassee. The Germans, reinforced by the
+men, and more particularly by the guns that the fall of Antwerp had let
+loose, attacked violently at Ypres and La Bassee. I do not say this is
+what really happened. I am trying to tell you what we thought was
+happening.
+
+Think of us, then, in the heat of early October going into action on the
+left of the French, confident that we had just a little opposition to
+brush away in front of us before we concentrated in the square at La
+Bassee.
+
+At first the 13th Brigade was put into position south of the canal, the
+15th Brigade attacked from the canal to the La Bassee-Estaires road, and
+the 14th from the main road roughly to the Richebourgs. In the second
+stage the French extended their line to the Canal, and the 13th became a
+reserve brigade. In the third stage we had every man in the line--the
+13th Brigade being split up between the 14th and 15th, and the French
+sent two battalions to the north bank of the canal.
+
+The work of the despatch riders was of two kinds. Three-quarters of us
+rode between the divisional and the brigade headquarters. The rest were
+attached to the brigades, and either used for miscellaneous work or held
+in reserve so that communication might not be broken if the wires were
+cut or smashed by shells.
+
+One motor-cyclist went out every day to Lieutenant Chapman, who was
+acting as liaison officer with the French. This job never fell to my
+lot, but I am told it was exciting enough. The French general was an
+intrepid old fellow, who believed that a general should be near his
+fighting men. So his headquarters were always being shelled. Then he
+would not retire, but preferred to descend into the cellar until the
+evil times were overpast.
+
+The despatch rider with Chapman had his bellyful of shells. It was
+pleasant to sit calmly in a cellar and receive food at the hands of an
+accomplished _chef_, and in more peaceful times there was opportunity to
+study the idiosyncrasies of German gunners and the peculiar merits of
+the Soixante-Quinze. But when the shelling was hottest there was usually
+work for the despatch rider--and getting away from the unhealthy area
+before scooting down the Annequin road was a heart-thumping job.
+
+French generals were always considerate and hospitable to us despatch
+riders. On our arrival at Bethune Huggie was sent off with a message to
+a certain French Corps Commander. The General received him with a proper
+French embrace, congratulated him on our English bravery, and set him
+down to some food and a glass of good wine.
+
+It was at La Bassee that we had our first experience of utterly
+unrideable roads. North of the canal the roads were fair macadam in dry
+weather and to the south the main road Bethune-Beuvry-Annequin was of
+the finest pave. Then it rained hard. First the roads became greasy
+beyond belief. Starting was perilous, and the slightest injudicious
+swerve meant a bad skid. Between Gorre and Festubert the road was vile.
+It went on raining, and the roads were thickly covered with glutinous
+mud. The front mud-guard of George's Douglas choked up with a lamentable
+frequency. The Blackburne alone, the finest and most even-running of all
+motor-cycles,[16] ran with unswerving regularity.
+
+Finally, to our heartburning sorrow, there were nights on which
+motor-cycling became impossible, and we stayed restlessly at home while
+men on the despised horse carried our despatches. This we could not
+allow for long. Soon we became so skilled that, if I remember correctly,
+it was only on half a dozen nights in all right through the winter that
+the horsemen were required.
+
+It was at La Bassee too that we had our second casualty. A despatch
+rider whom we called "Moulders" came in one evening full of triumph. A
+bullet had just grazed his leg and the Government was compelled to
+provide him with a new puttee. We were jealous, and he was proud.
+
+We slept in that room which was no room, the entrance-hall of Beuvry
+Station. It was small and crowded. The floor was covered with straw
+which we could not renew. After the first fortnight the population of
+this chamber increased rapidly; one or two of us spoke of himself
+hereafter in the plural. They gave far less trouble than we had
+expected, and, though always with some of us until the spring, suffered
+heavy casualties from the use of copious petrol and the baking of washed
+shirts in the village oven.
+
+We had been given a cook of our own. He was a youth of dreamy habits and
+acquisitive tastes, but sometimes made a good stew. Each one of us
+thought he himself was talented beyond the ordinary, so the cook never
+wanted assistance--except perhaps in the preparing of breakfast. Food
+was good and plentiful, while the monotony of army rations was broken by
+supplies from home and from Bethune. George, thank heaven, was still
+with us.
+
+Across the bridge was a shop where you could buy anything from a pair of
+boots to a kilo of vermicelli. Those of us who were not on duty would
+wander in about eleven in the morning, drink multitudinous bowls of
+coffee at two sous the bowl, and pass the time of day with some of the
+cyclists who were billeted in the big brewery. Just down the road was a
+tavern where infernal cognac could be got and occasionally good red
+wine.
+
+Even when there was little to do, the station was not dull. French
+hussars, dainty men with thin and graceful horses, rode over the bridge
+and along the canal every morning. Cuirassiers would clatter and swagger
+by--and guns, both French and English. Behind the station much
+ammunition was stored, a source of keen pleasure if ever the Germans had
+attempted to shell the station. It was well within range. During the
+last week His Majesty's armoured train, "Jellicoe," painted in wondrous
+colours, would rumble in and on towards La Bassee. The crew were full of
+Antwerp tales and late newspapers. The first time the train went into
+action it demolished a German battery, but afterwards it had little
+luck.
+
+The corps was at Hinges. If work were slack and the Signal Sergeant
+were kind, he would give one of us a bunch of messages for the corps,
+with the hint that the return might be made at leisure. Between Hinges
+and Beuvry lay Bethune. Hinges deserves a word.
+
+When first the corps came to Hinges, the inhabitants were exalted. The
+small boys came out in puttees and the women put ribbons in their hair.
+Now, if you pronounce Hinges in the French fashion, you give forth an
+exclamation of distressful pain. The name cannot be shouted from a
+motor-cycle. It has its difficulties even for the student of French. So
+we all called it, plainly and bluntly, Hinges, as though it were
+connected to a door. The inhabitants noticed this. Thinking that they
+and their forefathers had been wrong--for surely these fine men with red
+hats knew better than they--the English pronunciation spread. The
+village became 'Ingees, and now only some unfashionable dotards in
+Bethune preserve the tradition of the old pronunciation. It is not only
+Hinges that has been thus decently attired in British garb. Le Cateau is
+Lee Catoo. Boescheppe is Bo-peep. Ouderdon is Eiderdown.
+
+Bethune was full of simple pleasures. First there were the public baths,
+cheap and good, and sundry coiffeurs who were much in demand, for they
+made you smell sweetly. Then there was a little blue and white cafe. The
+daughter of the house was well-favoured and played the piano with some
+skill. One of us spent all his spare time at this cafe in silent
+adoration--of the piano, for his French was exiguous in the extreme.
+There was a patisserie crammed full of the most delicious cream-cakes.
+The despatch rider who went to Hinges about 3.30 P.M. and did not return
+with cakes for tea, found life unpleasant. Near the station three
+damsels ruled a tavern. They were friendly and eager to teach us French.
+We might have left them with a sigh of regret if we had not once arrived
+as they were eating their midday meal.
+
+At one time the Germans dropped a few shells into Bethune, but did
+little damage. Bombs fell too. One nearly ended the existence of
+"Sadders"--also known as "Boo." It dropped on the other side of the
+street; doing our despatch rider no damage, it slightly wounded Sergeant
+Croucher of the Cyclists in a portion of his body that made him swear
+when he was classed as a "sitting-up case."
+
+Of all the towns behind the lines--Bethune, Estaires, Armentieres,
+Bailleul, Poperinghe--Bethune is the pleasantest. The people are
+charming. There is nothing you cannot buy there. It is clean and
+well-ordered, and cheerful in the rain. I pray that Bethune may survive
+the war--that after peace has been declared and Berlin has been entered,
+I may spend a week there and much money to the profit of the people and
+the satisfaction of myself.
+
+Now I will give some account of our adventures out with the brigades
+round La Bassee.
+
+[Illustration: ROUND LA BASSEE]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] The first--in October and November.
+
+[16] This is not an unthinking advertisement. After despatch riding from
+August 16 to February 18 my judgment should be worth something. I am
+firmly convinced that if the Government could have provided all despatch
+riders with Blackburnes, the percentage--at all times small--of messages
+undelivered owing to mechanical breakdowns or the badness of the roads
+would have been reduced to zero. I have no interest in the Blackburne
+Company beyond a sincere admiration of the machine it produces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ROUND LA BASSEE.
+
+
+It had been a melancholy day, full of rain and doubting news. Those of
+us who were not "out" were strolling up and down the platform arranging
+the order of cakes from home and trying to gather from the sound of the
+gunning and intermittent visits to the Signal Office what was happening.
+
+Someone had been told that the old 15th was being hard pressed. Each of
+us regretted loudly that we had not been attached to it, though our
+hearts spoke differently. Despatch riders have muddled thoughts. There
+is a longing for the excitement of danger and a very earnest desire to
+keep away from it.
+
+The C.O. walked on to the platform hurriedly, and in a minute or two I
+was off. It was lucky that the road was covered with unholy grease, that
+the light was bad and there was transport on the road--for it is not
+good for a despatch rider to think too much of what is before him. My
+instructions were to report to the general and make myself useful. I was
+also cheerfully informed that the H.Q. of the 15th were under a robust
+shell-fire. Little parties of sad-looking wounded that I passed, the
+noise of the guns, and the evil dusk heartened me.
+
+I rode into Festubert, which was full of noise, and, very hastily
+dismounting, put my motor-cycle under the cover of an arch and reported
+to the general. He was sitting at a table in the stuffy room of a
+particularly dirty tavern. At the far end a fat and frightened woman was
+crooning to her child. Beside her sat a wrinkled, leathery old man with
+bandaged head. He had wandered into the street, and he had been cut
+about by shrapnel. The few wits he had ever possessed were gone, and he
+gave every few seconds little croaks of hate. Three telephone operators
+were working with strained faces at their highest speed. The windows had
+been smashed by shrapnel, and bits of glass and things crunched under
+foot. The room was full of noises--the crackle of the telephones, the
+crooning of the woman, the croak of the wounded old man, the clear and
+incisive tones of the general and his brigade-major, the rattle of not
+too distant rifles, the booming of guns and occasionally the terrific,
+overwhelming crash of a shell bursting in the village.
+
+I was given a glass of wine. Cadell, the Brigade Signal Officer, and the
+Veterinary Officer, came up to me and talked cheerfully in whispered
+tones about our friends.
+
+There was the sharp cry of shrapnel in the street and a sudden rattle
+against the whole house. The woman and child fled somewhere through a
+door, followed feebly by the old man. The brigade-major persuaded the
+general to work in some less unhealthy place. The telephone operators
+moved. A moment's delay as the general endeavoured to persuade the
+brigade-major to go first, and we found ourselves under a stalwart arch
+that led into the courtyard of the tavern. We lit pipes and cigarettes.
+The crashes of bursting shells grew more frequent, and the general
+remarked in a dry and injured tone--
+
+"Their usual little evening shoot before putting up the shutters, I
+suppose."
+
+But first the Germans "searched" the village. Now to search a village
+means to start at one end of the village and place shells at discreet
+intervals until the other end of the village is reached. It is an
+unpleasant process for those in the middle of the village, even though
+they be standing, as we were, in comparatively good shelter.
+
+We heard the Germans start at the other end of the village street. The
+crashes came nearer and nearer, until a shell burst with a scream and a
+thunderous roar just on our right. We puffed away at our cigarettes for
+a second, and a certain despatch rider wished he were anywhere but in
+the cursed village of Festubert by Bethune. There was another scream and
+overwhelming relief. The next shell burst three houses away on our left.
+I knocked my pipe out and filled another.
+
+The Germans finished their little evening shoot. We marched back very
+slowly in the darkness to 1910 Farm.
+
+This farm was neither savoury nor safe. It was built round a courtyard
+which consisted of a gigantic hole crammed with manure in all the stages
+of unpleasant putrefaction. One side is a barn; two sides consist of
+stables, and the third is the house inhabited not only by us but by an
+incredibly filthy and stinking old woman who was continually troubling
+the general because some months ago a French cuirassier took one of her
+chickens. The day after we arrived at this farm I had few despatches to
+take, so I wrote to Robert. Here is some of the letter and bits of
+other letters I wrote during the following days. They will give you an
+idea of our state of mind:[17]
+
+If you want something of the dramatic--I am writing in a farm under
+shrapnel fire, smoking a pipe that was broken by a shell. For true
+effect I suppose I should not tell you that the shrapnel is bursting
+about fifty yards the other side of the house, that I am in a room lying
+on the floor, and consequently that, so long as they go on firing
+shrapnel, I am perfectly safe.
+
+It's the dismallest of places. Two miles farther back the heavies are
+banging away over our heads. There are a couple of batteries near the
+farm. Two miles along the road the four battalions of our brigade are
+holding on for dear life in their trenches.
+
+The country is open plough, with little clumps of trees, sparse hedges,
+and isolated cottages giving a precarious cover. It's all very damp and
+miserable, for it was raining hard last night and the day before.
+
+I am in a little bare room with the floor covered with straw. Two
+telegraph operators are making that infernal jerky clicking sound I have
+begun so to hate. Half a dozen men of the signal staff are lying about
+the floor looking at week-old papers. In the next room I can hear the
+general, seated at a table and intent on his map, talking to an officer
+that has just come from the firing line. Outside the window a gun is
+making a fiendish row, shaking the whole house. Occasionally there is a
+bit of a rattle--that's shrapnel bullets falling on the tiles of an
+outhouse.
+
+If you came out you might probably find this exhilarating. I have just
+had a talk with our mutual friend Cadell, the Signal Officer of this
+brigade, and we have decided that we are fed up with it. For one
+thing--after two months' experience of shell fire the sound of a shell
+bursting within measurable distance makes you start and shiver for a
+moment--reflex action of the nerves. That is annoying. We both decided
+we would willingly change places with you and take a turn at defending
+your doubtless excellently executed trenches at Liberton.
+
+The line to the ----[18] has just gone. It's almost certain death to
+relay it in the day-time. Cadell and his men are discussing the chances
+while somebody else has started a musical-box. A man has gone out; I
+wonder if he will come back. The rest of the men have gone to sleep
+again. That gun outside the window is getting on my nerves. Well, well!
+
+The shrapnel fire appears to have stopped for the present. No, there's a
+couple together. If they fire over this farm I hope they don't send me
+back to D.H.Q.
+
+Do you know what I long for more than anything else? A clean, unhurried
+breakfast with spotless napery and shining silver and porridge and
+kippers. I don't think these long, lazy after-breakfast hours at Oxford
+were wasted. They are a memory and a hope out here. The shrapnel is
+getting nearer and more frequent. We are all hoping it will kill some
+chickens in the courtyard. The laws against looting are so strict.
+
+What an excellent musical-box, playing quite a good imitation of
+_Cavalleria Rusticana_. I guess we shall have to move soon. Too many
+shells. Too dark to write any more----
+
+After all, quite the most important things out here are a fine meal and
+a good bath. If you consider the vast area of the war the facts that we
+have lost two guns or advanced five miles are of very little importance.
+War, making one realise the hopeless insignificance of the individual,
+creates in one such an immense regard for self, that so long as one
+does well it matters little if four officers have been killed
+reconnoitring or some wounded have had to be left under an abandoned gun
+all night. I started with an immense interest in tactics. This has
+nearly all left me and I remain a more or less efficient
+despatch-carrying animal--a part of a machine realising the hopeless,
+enormous size of the machine.
+
+The infantry officer after two months of modern war is a curious
+phenomenon.[19] He is probably one of three survivors of an original
+twenty-eight. He is not frightened of being killed; he has forgotten to
+think about it. But there is a sort of reflex fright. He becomes either
+cautious and liable to sudden panics, or very rash indeed, or absolutely
+mechanical in his actions. The first state means the approach of a
+nervous breakdown, the second a near death. There are very few, indeed,
+who retain a nervous balance and a calm judgment. And all have a harsh
+frightened voice. If you came suddenly out here, you would think they
+were all mortally afraid. But it is only giving orders for hours
+together under a heavy fire.
+
+Battle noises are terrific. At the present moment a howitzer is going
+strong behind this, and the concussion is tremendous. The noise is like
+dropping a traction-engine on a huge tin tray. A shell passing away from
+you over your head is like the loud crackling of a newspaper close to
+your ear. It makes a sort of deep reverberating crackle in the air,
+gradually lessening, until there is a dull boom, and a mile or so away
+you see a thick little cloud of white smoke in the air or a pear-shaped
+cloud of grey-black smoke on the ground. Coming towards you a shell
+makes a cutting, swishing note, gradually getting higher and higher,
+louder and louder. There is a longer note one instant and then it
+ceases. Shrapnel bursting close to you has the worst sound.
+
+It is almost funny in a village that is being shelled. Things simply
+disappear. You are standing in an archway a little back from the road--a
+shriek of shrapnel. The windows are broken and the tiles rush clattering
+into the street, while little bullets and bits of shell jump like
+red-hot devils from side to side of the street, ricochetting until their
+force is spent. Or a deeper bang, a crash, and a whole house tumbles
+down.
+
+_3/4-hour later._--Curious life this. Just after I had finished the last
+sentence, I was called out to take a message to a battery telling them
+to shell a certain village. Here am I wandering out, taking orders for
+the complete destruction of a village and probably for the death of a
+couple of hundred men[20] without a thought, except that the roads are
+very greasy and that lunch time is near.
+
+Again, yesterday, I put our Heavies in action, and in a quarter of an
+hour a fine old church, with what appeared from the distance a
+magnificent tower, was nothing but a grotesque heap of ruins. The
+Germans were loopholing it for defence.
+
+Oh the waste, the utter damnable waste of everything out here--men,
+horses, buildings, cars, everything. Those who talk about war being a
+salutary discipline are those who remain at home. In a modern war there
+is little room for picturesque gallantry or picture-book heroism. We are
+all either animals or machines, with little gained except our emotions
+dulled and brutalised and nightmare flashes of scenes that cannot be
+written about because they are unbelievable. I wonder what difference
+you will find in us when we come home----
+
+Do you know what a night scare is? In our last H.Q. we were all dining
+when suddenly there was a terrific outburst of rifle-fire from our
+lines. We went out into the road that passes the farm and stood there
+in the pitch darkness, wondering. The fire increased in intensity until
+every soldier within five miles seemed to be revelling in a lunatic
+succession of "mad minutes." Was it a heavy attack on our lines? Soon
+pom-poms joined in sharp, heavy taps--and machine guns. The lines to the
+battalions were at the moment working feebly, and what the operators
+could get through was scarcely intelligible. Ammunition limbers were
+hurried up, and I stood ready to dart anywhere. For twenty minutes the
+rifle-fire seemed to grow wilder and wilder. At last stretcher-bearers
+came in with a few wounded and reported that we seemed to be holding our
+own. Satisfactory so far. Then there were great flashes of shrapnel over
+our lines; that comforted us, for if your troops are advancing you don't
+fire shrapnel over the enemy's lines. You never know how soon they may
+be yours. The firing soon died down until we heard nothing but little
+desultory bursts. Finally an orderly came--the Germans had
+half-heartedly charged our trenches but had been driven off with loss.
+We returned to the farm and found that in the few minutes we had been
+outside everything had been packed and half-frightened men were standing
+about for orders.
+
+The explanation of it all came later and was simple enough. The French,
+without letting us know, had attacked the Germans on our right, and the
+Germans to keep us engaged had made a feint attack upon us. So we went
+back to dinner.
+
+In modern war the infantryman hasn't much of a chance. Strategy nowadays
+consists in arranging for the mutual slaughter of infantry by the
+opposing guns, each general trusting that his guns will do the greater
+slaughter. And half gunnery is luck. The day before yesterday we had a
+little afternoon shoot at where we thought the German trenches might be.
+The Germans unaccountably retreated, and yesterday when we advanced we
+found the trenches crammed full of dead. By a combination of intelligent
+anticipation and good luck we had hit them exactly----
+
+From these letters you will be able to gather what mood we were in and
+something of what the brigade despatch rider was doing. After the first
+day the Germans ceased shrapnelling the fields round the farm and left
+us nearly in peace. There I met Major Ballard, commanding the 15th
+Artillery Brigade, one of the finest officers of my acquaintance, and
+Captain Frost, the sole remaining officer of the Cheshires. He was
+charming to me; I was particularly grateful for the loan of a razor,
+for my own had disappeared and there were no despatch riders handy from
+whom I could borrow.
+
+Talking of the Cheshires reminds me of a story illustrating the troubles
+of a brigadier. The general was dining calmly one night after having
+arranged an attack. All orders had been sent out. Everything was
+complete and ready. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and in walked
+Captain M----, who reported his arrival with 200 reinforcements for the
+Cheshires, a pleasant but irritating addition. The situation was further
+complicated by the general's discovery that M---- was senior to the
+officer then in command of the Cheshires. Poor M---- was not left long
+in command. A fortnight later the Germans broke through and over the
+Cheshires, and M---- died where a commanding officer should.
+
+From 1910 Farm I had one good ride to the battalions, through Festubert
+and along to the Cuinchy bridge. For me it was interesting because it
+was one of the few times I had ridden just behind our trenches, which at
+the moment were just north of the road and were occupied by the
+Bedfords.
+
+In a day or two we returned to Festubert, and Cadell gave me a
+shake-down on a mattress in his billet--gloriously comfortable. The room
+was a little draughty because the fuse of a shrapnel had gone right
+through the door and the fireplace opposite. Except for a peppering on
+the walls and some broken glass the house was not damaged; we almost
+laughed at the father and mother and daughter who, returning while we
+were there, wept because their home had been touched.
+
+Orders came to attack. A beautiful plan was drawn up by which the
+battalions of the brigade were to finish their victorious career in the
+square of La Bassee.
+
+In connection with this attack I was sent with a message for the Devons.
+It was the blackest of black nights and I was riding without a light.
+Twice I ran into the ditch, and finally I piled up myself and my bicycle
+on a heap of stones lying by the side of the road. I did not damage my
+bicycle. That was enough. I left it and walked.
+
+When I got to Cuinchy bridge I found that the Devon headquarters had
+shifted. Beyond that the sentry knew nothing. Luckily I met a Devon
+officer who was bringing up ammunition. We searched the surrounding
+cottages for men with knowledge, and at last discovered that the Devons
+had moved farther along the canal in the direction of La Bassee. So we
+set out along the tow-path, past a house that was burning fiercely
+enough to make us conspicuous.
+
+We felt our way about a quarter of a mile and stopped, because we were
+getting near the Germans. Indeed we could hear the rumble of their
+transport crossing the La Bassee bridge. We turned back, and a few yards
+nearer home some one coughed high up the bank on our right. We found the
+cough to be a sentry, and behind the sentry were the Devons.
+
+The attack, as you know, was held up on the line
+Cuinchy-Givenchy-Violaines; we advanced our headquarters to a house just
+opposite the inn by which the road to Givenchy turns off. It was not
+very safe, but the only shell that burst anywhere near the house itself
+did nothing but wound a little girl in the leg.
+
+On the previous day I had ridden to Violaines at dawn to draw a plan of
+the Cheshires' trenches for the general. I strolled out by the sugar
+factory, and had a good look at the red houses of La Bassee. Half an
+hour later a patrol went out to explore the sugar factory. They did not
+return. It seems that the factory was full of machine-guns. I had not
+been fired upon, because the Germans did not wish to give their position
+away sooner than was necessary.
+
+A day or two later I had the happiness of avenging my potential death.
+First I took orders to a battery of 6-inch howitzers at the Rue de
+Marais to knock the factory to pieces, then I carried an observing
+officer to some haystacks by Violaines, from which he could get a good
+view of the factory. Finally I watched with supreme satisfaction the
+demolition of the factory, and with regretful joy the slaughter of the
+few Germans who, escaping, scuttled for shelter in some trenches just
+behind and on either side of the factory.
+
+I left the 15th Brigade with regret, and the regret I felt would have
+been deeper if I had known what was going to happen to the brigade. I
+was given interesting work and made comfortable. No despatch rider could
+wish for more.
+
+Not long after I had returned from the 15th Brigade, the Germans
+attacked and broke through. They had been heavily reinforced and our
+tentative offensive had been replaced by a stern and anxious defensive.
+
+Now the Signal Office was established in the booking-office of Beuvry
+Station. The little narrow room was packed full of operators and vibrant
+with buzz and click. The Signal Clerk sat at a table in a tiny room just
+off the booking-office. Orderlies would rush in with messages, and the
+Clerk would instantly decide whether to send them over the wire, by
+push-cyclist, or by despatch rider. Again, he dealt with all messages
+that came in over the wire. Copies of these messages were filed. This
+was our tape; from them we learned the news. We were not supposed to
+read them, but, as we often found that they contained information which
+was invaluable to despatch riders, we always looked through them and
+each passed on what he had found to the others. The Signal Clerk might
+not know where a certain unit was at a given moment. We knew, because we
+had put together information that we had gathered in the course of our
+rides and information which--though the Clerk might think it
+unimportant--supplemented or completed or verified what we had already
+obtained.
+
+So the history of this partially successful attack was known to us.
+Every few minutes one of us went into the Signal Office and read the
+messages. When the order came for us to pack up, we had already made our
+preparations, for Divisional Headquarters, the brain controlling the
+actions of seventeen thousand men, must never be left in a position of
+danger. And wounded were pouring into the Field Ambulances.
+
+The enemy had made a violent attack, preluded by heavy shelling, on the
+left of the 15th, and what I think was a holding attack on the right.
+Violaines had been stormed, and the Cheshires had been driven, still
+grimly fighting, to beyond the Rue de Marais. The Norfolks on their
+right and the K.O.S.B.'s on their left had been compelled to draw back
+their line with heavy loss, for their flanks had been uncovered by the
+retreat of the Cheshires.
+
+The Germans stopped a moment to consolidate their gains. This gave us
+time to throw a couple of battalions against them. After desperate
+fighting Rue de Marais was retaken and some sort of line established.
+What was left of the Cheshires gradually rallied in Festubert.
+
+This German success, together with a later success against the 3rd
+Division, that resulted in our evacuation of Neuve Chapelle, compelled
+us to withdraw and readjust our line. This second line was not so
+defensible as the first. Until we were relieved the Germans battered at
+it with gunnery all day and attacks all night. How we managed to hold it
+is utterly beyond my understanding. The men were dog-tired. Few of the
+old officers were left, and they were "done to the world." Never did the
+Fighting Fifth more deserve the name. It fought dully and instinctively,
+like a boxer who, after receiving heavy punishment, just manages to keep
+himself from being knocked out until the call of time.
+
+Yet, when they had dragged themselves wearily and blindly out of the
+trenches, the fighting men of the Fighting Fifth were given but a day's
+rest or two before the 15th and two battalions of the 13th were sent to
+Hooge, and the remainder to hold sectors of the line farther south. Can
+you wonder that we despatch riders, in comparative safety behind the
+line, did all we could to help the most glorious and amazing infantry
+that the world has ever seen?[21] And when you praise the deeds of Ypres
+of the First Corps, who had experienced no La Bassee, spare a word for
+the men of the Fighting Fifth who thought they could fight no more and
+yet fought.
+
+A few days after I had returned from the 15th Brigade I was sent out to
+the 14th. I found them at the Estaminet de l'Epinette on the
+Bethune-Richebourg road. Headquarters had been compelled to shift,
+hastily enough, from the Estaminet de La Bombe on the La Bassee-Estaires
+road. The estaminet had been shelled to destruction half an hour after
+the Brigade had moved. The Estaminet de l'Epinette was filthy and small.
+I slept in a stinking barn, half-full of dirty straw, and rose with the
+sun for the discomfort of it.
+
+Opposite the estaminet a road goes to Festubert. At the corner there is
+a cluster of dishevelled houses. I sat at the door and wrote letters,
+and looked for what might come to pass. In the early dawn the poplars
+alongside the highway were grey and dull. There was mist on the road;
+the leaves that lay thick were black. Then as the sun rose higher the
+poplars began to glisten and the mist rolled away, and the leaves were
+red and brown.
+
+An old woman came up the road and prayed the sentry to let her pass. He
+could not understand her and called to me. She told me that her family
+were in the house at the corner fifty yards distant. I replied that she
+could not go to them--that they, if they were content not to return,
+might come to her. But the family would not leave their chickens, and
+cows, and corn. So the old woman, who was tired, sank down by the
+wayside and wept. This sorrow was no sorrow to the sorrow of the war. I
+left the old woman, the sentry, and the family, and went into a fine
+breakfast.
+
+At this time there was much talk about spies. Our wires were often cut
+mysteriously. A sergeant had been set upon in a lane. The enemy were
+finding our guns with uncanny accuracy. All our movements seemed to be
+anticipated by the enemy. Taking for granted the extraordinary
+efficiency of the German Intelligence Corps, we were particularly
+nervous about spies when the Division was worn out, when things were not
+going well.
+
+At the Estaminet de l'Epinette I heard a certain story, and hearing it
+set about to make a fool of myself. This is the story--I have never
+heard it substantiated, and give it as an illustration and not as fact.
+
+There was once an artillery brigade billeted in a house two miles or so
+behind the lines. All the inhabitants of the house had fled, for the
+village had been heavily bombarded. Only a girl had had the courage to
+remain and do hostess to the English. She was so fresh and so charming,
+so clever in her cookery, and so modest in her demeanour that all the
+men of the brigade headquarters fell madly in love with her. They even
+quarrelled. Now this brigade was suffering much from espionage. The guns
+could not be moved without the Germans knowing their new position. No
+transport or ammunition limbers were safe from the enemy's guns. The
+brigade grew mightily indignant. The girl was told by her numerous
+sweethearts what was the matter. She was angry and sympathetic, and
+swore that through her the spy should be discovered. She swore the
+truth.
+
+One night a certain lewd fellow of the baser sort pursued the girl with
+importunate pleadings. She confessed that she liked him, but not in that
+way. He left her and stood sullenly by the door. The girl took a pail
+and went down into the cellar to fetch up a little coal, telling the man
+with gentle mockery not to be so foolish. This angered him, and in a
+minute he had rushed after her into the cellar, snorting with
+disappointed passion. Of course he slipped on the stairs and fell with a
+crash. The girl screamed. The fellow, his knee bruised, tried to feel
+his way to the bottom of the stairs and touched a wire. Quickly running
+his hand along the wire he came to a telephone. The girl rushed to him,
+and, clasping his knees, offered him anything he might wish, if only he
+would say nothing. I think he must have hesitated for a moment, but he
+did not hesitate long. The girl was shot.
+
+Full of this suspiciously melodramatic story I caught sight of a
+mysterious document fastened by nails to the house opposite the inn. It
+was covered with coloured signs which, whatever they were, certainly did
+not form letters or make sense in any way. I examined the document
+closely. One sign looked like an aeroplane, another like a house, a
+third like the rough drawing of a wood. I took it to a certain officer,
+who agreed with me that it appeared suspicious.
+
+We carried it to the staff-captain, who pointed out very forcibly that
+it had been raining lately, that colour ran, that the signs left formed
+portions of letters. I demanded the owner of the house upon which the
+document had been posted. She was frightened and almost unintelligible,
+but supplied the missing fragments. The document was a crude election
+appeal. Being interpreted it read something like this:--
+
+     SUPPORT LEFEVRE. HE IS NOT A LIAR LIKE DUBOIS.
+
+Talking of spies, here is another story. It is true.
+
+Certain wires were always being cut. At length a patrol was organised.
+While the operator was talking there was a little click and no further
+acknowledgment from the other end. The patrol started out and caught the
+man in the act of cutting a second wire. He said nothing.
+
+He was brought before the Mayor. Evidence was briefly given of his
+guilt. He made no protest. It was stated that he had been born in the
+village. The Mayor turned to the man and said--
+
+"You are a traitor. It is clear. Have you anything to say?"
+
+The man stood white and straight. Then he bowed his head and made
+answer--
+
+"Priez pour moi."
+
+That was no defence. So they led him away.
+
+The morning after I arrived at the 14th the Germans concentrated their
+fire on a large turnip-field and exhumed multitudinous turnips. No
+further damage was done, but the field was unhealthily near the
+Estaminet de l'Epinette. In the afternoon we moved our headquarters back
+a mile or so to a commodious and moderately clean farm with a
+forgettable name.
+
+That evening two prisoners were brought in. They owned to eighteen, but
+did not look more than sixteen. The guard treated them with kindly
+contempt. We all sat round a makeshift table in the loft where we slept
+and told each other stories of fighting and love and fear, while the
+boys, squatting a little distance away, listened and looked at us in
+wonder. I came in from a ride about one in the morning and found those
+of the guard who were off duty and the two German boys sleeping side by
+side. Literally it was criminal negligence--some one ought to have been
+awake--but, when I saw one of the boys was clasping tightly a packet of
+woodbines, I called it something else and went to sleep.
+
+A day or two later I was relieved. On the following afternoon I was sent
+to Estaires to bring back some details about the Lahore Division which
+had just arrived on the line. I had, of course, seen Spahis and Turcos
+and Senegalese, but when riding through Lestrem I saw these Indian
+troops of ours the obvious thoughts tumbled over one another.
+
+We despatch riders when first we met the Indians wondered how they would
+fight, how they would stand shell-fire and the climate--but chiefly we
+were filled with a sort of mental helplessness, riding among people when
+we could not even vaguely guess at what they were thinking. We could get
+no deeper than their appearance, dignified and clean and well-behaved.
+
+In a few days I was back again at the 14th with Huggie. At dusk the
+General went out in his car to a certain village about three miles
+distant. Huggie went with him. An hour or so, and I was sent after him
+with a despatch. The road was almost unrideable with the worst sort of
+grease, the night was pitch-black and I was allowed no light. I
+slithered along at about six miles an hour, sticking out my legs for a
+permanent scaffolding. Many troops were lying down at the side of the
+road. An officer in a strained voice just warned me in time for me to
+avoid a deep shell-hole by inches. I delivered my despatch to the
+General. Outside the house I found two or three officers I knew. Two of
+them were young captains in command of battalions. Then I learned how
+hard put to it the Division was, and what the result is of nervous
+strain.
+
+They had been fighting and fighting and fighting until their nerves were
+nothing but a jangling torture. And a counter-attack on Neuve Chapelle
+was being organised. Huggie told me afterwards that when the car had
+come along the road, all the men had jumped like startled animals and a
+few had turned to take cover. Why, if a child had met one of these men
+she would have taken him by the hand instinctively and told him not to
+be frightened, and defended him against anything that came. Yet it is
+said there are still those at home who will not stir to help. I do not
+see how this can possibly be true. It could not be true.
+
+First we talked about the counter-attack, and which battalion would
+lead; then with a little manipulation we began to discuss musical comedy
+and the beauty of certain ladies. Again the talk would wander back to
+which battalion would lead.
+
+I returned perilously with a despatch and left Huggie, to spend a
+disturbed night and experience those curious sensations which are caused
+by a shell bursting just across the road from the house.
+
+The proposed attack was given up. If it had been carried out, those men
+would have fought as finely as they could. I do not know whether my
+admiration for the infantry or my hatred of war is the greater. I can
+express neither.
+
+On the following day the Brigadier moved to a farm farther north. It was
+the job of Huggie and myself to keep up communication between this farm
+and the brigade headquarters at the farm with the forgettable name. To
+ride four miles or so along country lanes from one farm to another does
+not sound particularly strenuous. It was. In the first place, the
+neighbourhood of the advanced farm was not healthy. The front gate was
+marked down by a sniper who fired not infrequently but a little high.
+Between the back gate and the main road was impassable mud. Again, the
+farm was only three-quarters of a mile behind our trenches, and "overs"
+went zipping through the farm buildings at all sorts of unexpected
+angles. There were German aeroplanes about, so we covered our stationary
+motor-cycles with straw.
+
+Starting from brigade headquarters the despatch rider in half a mile was
+forced to pass the transport of a Field Ambulance. The men seemed to
+take a perverted delight in wandering aimlessly and deafly across the
+road, and in leaving anything on the road which could conceivably
+obstruct or annoy a motor-cyclist. Then came two and a half miles of
+winding country lanes. They were covered with grease. Every corner was
+blind. A particularly sharp turn to the right and the despatch rider
+rode a couple of hundred yards in front of a battery in action that the
+Germans were trying to find. A "hairpin" corner round a house followed.
+This he would take with remarkable skill and alacrity, because at this
+corner he was always sniped. The German's rifle was trained a trifle
+high. Coming into the final straight the despatch rider or one despatch
+rider rode for all he was worth. It was unpleasant to find new
+shell-holes just off the road each time you passed, or, as you came into
+the straight, to hear the shriek of shrapnel between you and the farm.
+
+Huggie once arrived at the house of the "hairpin" bend simultaneously
+with a shell. The shell hit the house, the house did not hit Huggie, and
+the sniper forgot to snipe. So every one was pleased.
+
+On my last journey I passed a bunch of wounded Sikhs. They were
+clinging to all their kit. One man was wounded in both his feet. He was
+being carried by two of his fellows. In his hands he clutched his boots.
+
+The men did not know where to go or what to do. I could not make them
+understand, but I tried by gestures to show them where the ambulance
+was.
+
+I saw two others--they were slightly wounded--talking fiercely together.
+At last they grasped their rifles firmly, and swinging round, limped
+back towards the line.
+
+Huggie did most of the work that day, because during the greater part of
+the afternoon I was kept back at brigade headquarters.
+
+In the evening I went out in the car to fetch the general. The car,
+which was old but stout, had been left behind by the Germans. The driver
+of it was a reservist who had been taken from his battalion. Day and
+night he tended and coaxed that car. He tied it together when it fell to
+pieces. At all times and in all places he drove that car, for he had no
+wish at all to return to the trenches.
+
+On the following day Huggie and I were relieved. When we returned to our
+good old musty quarters at Beuvry men talked of a move. There were
+rumours of hard fighting in Ypres. Soon the Lahore Division came down
+towards our line and began to take over from us. The 14th Brigade was
+left to strengthen them. The 15th and 13th began to move north.
+
+Early on the morning of October 29 we started, riding first along the
+canal by Bethune. As for Festubert, Givenchy, Violaines, Rue de Marais,
+Quinque Rue, and La Bassee, we never want to see them again.
+
+[Illustration: YPRES _TO_ LA BASSEE]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] The letters were written on the 14th October _et seq._ The censor
+was kind.
+
+[18] Dorsets, I think.
+
+[19] I do not say this paragraph is true. It is what I thought on 15th
+October 1914. The weather was depressing.
+
+[20] Optimist!
+
+[21] After nine months at the Front--six and a half months as a despatch
+rider and two and a half months as a cyclist officer--I have decided
+that the English language has no superlative sufficient to describe our
+infantry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF WINTER.
+
+
+Before we came, Givenchy had been a little forgettable village upon a
+hill, Violaines a pleasant afternoon's walk for the working men in La
+Bassee, Festubert a gathering-place for the people who lived in the
+filthy farms around. We left Givenchy a jumble of shuttered houses and
+barricaded cellars. A few Germans were encamped upon the site of
+Violaines. The great clock of Festubert rusted quickly against a tavern
+wall. We hated La Bassee, because against La Bassee the Division had
+been broken. There are some square miles of earth that, like criminals,
+should not live.
+
+Our orders were to reach Caestre not later than the Signal Company.
+Caestre is on the Cassel-Bailleul road, three miles north-east of
+Hazebrouck. These unattached rides across country are the most joyous
+things in the world for a despatch rider. There is never any need to
+hurry. You can take any road you will. You may choose your tavern for
+lunch with expert care. And when new ground is covered and new troops
+are seen, we capture sometimes those sharp delightful moments of
+thirsting interest that made the Retreat into an epic and the Advance a
+triumphant ballad.
+
+N'Soon and myself left together. We skidded along the tow-path, passed
+the ever-cheerful cyclists, and, turning due north, ran into St Venant.
+The grease made us despatch riders look as if we were beginning to
+learn. I rode gently but surely down the side of the road into the
+gutter time after time. Pulling ourselves together, we managed to slide
+past some Indian transport without being kicked by the mules, who,
+whenever they smelt petrol, developed a strong offensive. Then we came
+upon a big gun, discreetly covered by tarpaulins. It was drawn by a
+monster traction-engine, and sad-faced men walked beside it. The
+steering of the traction-engine was a trifle loose, so N'Soon and I drew
+off into a field to let this solemn procession pass. One of the commands
+in the unpublished "Book of the Despatch Rider" is this:--
+
+     _When you halt by the roadside to let guns pass or when you
+     leave your motor-cycle unattended, first place it in a
+     position of certain safety where it cannot possibly be
+     knocked over, and then move it another fifty yards from the
+     road. It is impossible for a gunner to see something by the
+     roadside and not drive over it. Moreover, lorries when they
+     skid, skid furiously._
+
+Four miles short of Hazebrouck we caught up the rest. Proceeding in
+single file along the road, we endeavoured not to laugh, for--as one
+despatch rider said--it makes all the difference on grease which side of
+your mouth you put your pipe in. We reached Hazebrouck at midday.
+Spreading out--the manoeuvre had become a fine art--we searched the
+town. The "Chapeau Rouge" was well reported on, and there we lunched.
+
+All those tourists who will deluge Flanders after the war should go to
+the "Chapeau Rouge" in Hazebrouck. There we had lentil soup and stewed
+kidneys, and roast veal with potatoes and leeks, fruit, cheese, and good
+red wine. So little was the charge that one of us offered to pay it all.
+There are other more fashionable hotels in Hazebrouck, but, trust the
+word of a despatch rider, the "Chapeau Rouge" beats them all.
+
+Very content we rode on to Caestre, arriving there ten minutes before
+the advance-party of the Signal Company. Divisional Headquarters were
+established at the House of the Spy. The owner of the house had been
+well treated by the Germans when they had passed through a month before.
+Upon his door had been written this damning legend--
+
+     HIER SIND GUETIGE LEUTE[22]
+
+and, when on the departure of the Germans the house had been searched by
+an indignant populace, German newspapers had been discovered in his
+bedroom.
+
+It is the custom of the Germans to spare certain houses in every village
+by chalking up some laudatory notice. We despatch riders had a theory
+that the inhabitants of these marked houses, far from being spies, were
+those against whom the Germans had some particular grievance. Imagine
+the wretched family doing everything in its power to avoid the effusive
+affection of the Teuton, breaking all its own crockery, and stealing all
+its own silver, defiling its beds and tearing its clothing. For the man
+whose goods have been spared by the German becomes an outcast. He lives
+in a state worse than death. He is hounded from his property, and driven
+across France with a character attached to him, like a kettle to a
+cat's tail. Genuine spies, on the other hand--so we thought--were worse
+treated than any and secretly recompensed. Such a man became a hero. All
+his neighbours brought their little offerings.
+
+The House of the Spy had a fine garden, hot and buzzing in the
+languorous heat. We bathed ourselves in it. And the sanitary
+arrangements were good.
+
+Grimers arrived lunchless an hour later. He had been promoted to drive
+the captured car. We took him to the tavern where beauty was allied with
+fine cooking. There he ate many omelettes.
+
+In the evening he and I suffered a great disappointment. We wandered
+into another tavern and were about to ask for our usual "Grenadine" when
+we saw behind the bar two bottles of Worthington. For a moment we were
+too stupefied to speak. Then, pulling ourselves together, we stammered
+out an order for beer, but the girl only smiled. They were empty
+bottles, souvenirs left by some rascally A.S.C. for the eternal
+temptation of all who might pass through. The girl in her sympathy
+comforted us with songs, one of which, "Les Serments," I translated for
+the benefit of Grimers, who knew no French. We sang cheerfully in French
+and English until it was time to return to our billet.
+
+In the morning a German aeroplane passed over at a great height. All the
+youngsters in the village tumbled over each other for shelter,
+shouting--Caput! caput![23]
+
+Later in the day we advanced to Bailleul, where we learnt that the 1st
+Corps was fighting furiously to the north. The square was full of
+motor-buses and staff-officers. They were the first of our own
+motor-buses we had seen out in Flanders. They cheered us greatly, and
+after some drinks we sat in one and tried to learn from the map
+something of the new country in which we were to ride. We rejoiced that
+we had come once again upon a Belgian sheet, because the old French map
+we had used, however admirable it might have been for brigadiers and
+suchlike people, was extremely unsuited to a despatch rider's work.
+
+Infantry were pouring through, the stern remnants of fine battalions.
+Ever since the night after Le Cateau infantry in column of route have
+fascinated us, for a regiment on the march bares its character to the
+world.
+
+First there were our brigades marching up to Mons, stalwart and
+cheering. After Le Cateau there were practically no battalions, just a
+crowd of men and transport pouring along the road to Paris. I watched
+the column pass for an hour, and in it there was no organised unit
+larger than a platoon, and only one platoon. How it happened I do not
+know, but, when we turned on the Germans, battalions, brigades,
+divisions, corps had been remade. The battalions were pitifully small.
+Many a time we who were watching said to one another: Surely that's not
+the end of the K.O.Y.L.I., or the Bedfords, or whatever regiment it
+might be!
+
+A battalion going into action has some men singing, some smiling vaguely
+to themselves, some looking raptly straight ahead, and some talking
+quickly as if they must never stop.
+
+A battalion that has come many miles is nearly silent. The strong men
+stride tirelessly without a word. Little weak men, marching on their
+nerves, hobble restlessly along. The men with bad feet limp and curse,
+wilting under the burden of their kit, and behind all come those who
+have fallen out by the way--men dragging themselves along behind a
+waggon, white-faced men with uneasy smiles on top of the waggons. A
+little farther back those who are trying to catch up: these are tragic
+figures, breaking into breathless little runs, but with a fine wavering
+attempt at striding out, as though they might be connecting files, when
+they march through a town or past an officer of high rank.
+
+A battalion that has just come out of action I cannot describe to you in
+these letters, but let me tell you now about Princess Pat's. I ran into
+them just as they were coming into Bailleul for the first time and were
+hearing the sound of the guns. They were the finest lot of men I have
+ever seen on the march. Gusts of great laughter were running through
+them. In the eyes of one or two were tears. And I told those civilians I
+passed that the Canadians, the fiercest of all soldiers, were come.
+Bailleul looked on them with more fright than admiration. The women
+whispered fearfully to each other--Les Canadiens, les Canadiens!...
+
+We despatch riders were given a large room in the house where the
+Divisional Staff was billeted. It had tables, chairs, a fireplace and
+gas that actually lit; so we were more comfortable than ever we had been
+before--that is, all except N'Soon, who had by this time discovered that
+continual riding on bad roads is apt to produce a fundamental soreness.
+N'Soon hung on nobly, but was at last sent away with blood-poisoning.
+Never getting home, he spent many weary months in peculiar convalescent
+camps, and did not join up again until the end of January.
+Moral--before going sick or getting wounded become an officer and a
+gentleman.
+
+The day after we arrived I was once more back in Belgium with a message
+to the C.R.A.[24] at Neuve Eglise. I had last been in Belgium on August
+23, the day we left Dour.
+
+The general might have been posing for a war artist. He was seated at a
+table in the middle of a field, his staff-captain with him. The ground
+sloped away to a wooded valley in which two or three batteries,
+carefully concealed, were blazing away. To the north shrapnel was
+bursting over Kemmel. In front the Messines ridge was almost hidden with
+the smoke of our shells. I felt that each point of interest ought to
+have been labelled in Mr Frederic Villiers' handwriting--"_German
+shrapnel bursting over Kemmel--our guns--this is a dead horse_."
+
+I first saw Ypres on the 6th November. I was sent off with a bundle of
+routine matter to the 1st Corps, then at Brielen, a couple of miles N.W.
+of Ypres. It was a nightmare ride. The road was _pave_ in the
+centre--villainous _pave_. At the side of it were glutinous morasses
+about six feet in width, and sixteen inches deep. I started off with
+two 2nd Corps motor-cyclists. There was an almost continuous line of
+transport on the road--motor-lorries that did not dare deviate an inch
+from the centre of the road for fear of slipping into the mire, motor
+ambulances, every kind of transport, and some infantry battalions. After
+following a column of motor-lorries a couple of miles--we stuck twice in
+trying to get past the rearmost lorry--we tried the road by Dranoutre
+and Locre. But these country lanes were worse of surface than the main
+road--greasy _pave_ is better that greasy rocks--and they were filled
+with odd detachments of French artillery. The two 2nd Corps
+motor-cyclists turned back. I crawled on at the risk of smashing my
+motor-cycle and myself, now skidding perilously between waggons, now
+clogging up, now taking to the fields, now driving frightened
+pedestrians off what the Belgians alone would call a footpath. I skidded
+into a subaltern, and each of us turned to curse, when--it was Gibson, a
+junior "Greats" don at Balliol, and the finest of fellows.
+
+Beyond Dickebusch French artillery were in action on the road. The
+houses just outside Ypres had been pelted with shrapnel but not
+destroyed. Just by the station, which had not then been badly knocked
+about, I learnt where to go. Ypres was the first half-evacuated town I
+had entered. It was like motor-cycling into a village from Oxford very
+early on a Sunday morning. Half an hour later I saw the towers of the
+city rising above a bank of mist which had begun to settle on the
+ground: then out rose great clouds of black smoke.
+
+I came back by Poperinghe to avoid the grease and crowding of the direct
+road, and there being no hurry I stopped at an inn for a beefsteak. The
+landlord's daughter talked of the many difficulties before us, and
+doubted of our success. I said, grandiloquently enough, that no victory
+was worth winning unless there were difficulties. At which she smiled
+and remarked, laughing--
+
+"There are no roses without thorns."
+
+She asked me how long the war would last. I replied that the good God
+alone knew. She shook her head--
+
+"How can the good God look down without a tear on the miseries of his
+people? Are not the flower of the young cut off in the spring of their
+youth?"
+
+Then she pointed to the church across the way, and said humbly--"On a
+beaucoup prie."
+
+She was of the true Flemish type, broad and big-breasted, but with a
+slight stoop, thick hips, dark and fresh-coloured, with large black eyes
+set too closely. Like all the Flemings, she spoke French slowly and
+distinctly, with an accent like the German. She was easy to understand.
+
+I stopped too long at Poperinghe, for it was dark and very misty on the
+road. Beyond Boescheppe--I was out of my way--the mist became a fog.
+Once I had to take to the ditch when some cuirassiers galloped out of
+the fog straight at me. It was all four French soldiers could do to get
+my motor-cycle out. Another time I stuck endeavouring to avoid some
+lorries. It is a diabolical joke of the Comic Imps to put fog upon a
+greasy road for the confusion of a despatch rider.
+
+On the next day I was sent out to the 14th Brigade at the Rue de Paradis
+near Laventie. You will remember that the 14th Brigade had been left to
+strengthen the Indian Corps when the 2nd Corps had moved north. I
+arrived at Rue de Paradis just as the Brigade Headquarters were coming
+into the village. So, while everybody else was fixing wires and
+generally making themselves useful, I rushed upstairs and seized a
+mattress and put it into a dark little dressing-room with hot and cold
+water, a mirror and a wardrobe. Then I locked the door. There I slept,
+washed, and dressed in delicious luxury.
+
+The brigade gave another despatch rider and myself, who were attached,
+very little to do beyond an occasional forty-mile run to D.H.Q. and back
+over dull roads. The signal office was established in a large room on
+the side of the house nearest to the Germans. It was constructed almost
+entirely of glass. Upon this the men commented with a grave fluency. The
+windows rattled with shrapnel bursting 600 yards away. The house was
+jarred through and through by the concussion of a heavy battery firing
+over our heads. The room was like a toy-shop with a lot of small
+children sounding all the musical toys. The vibrators and the buzzers
+were like hoarse toy trumpets.
+
+Our only excitement was the nightly rumour that the General was going to
+move nearer the trenches, that one of us would accompany him--I knew
+what that meant on greasy misty roads.
+
+After I had left, the Germans by chance or design made better practice.
+A shell burst in the garden and shattered all the windows of the room.
+The Staff took refuge in dug-outs that had been made in case of need.
+Tommy, then attached, took refuge in the cellar. According to his own
+account, when he woke up in the morning he was floating. The house had
+some corners taken off it and all the glass was shattered, but no one
+was hurt.
+
+When I returned to Bailleul, Divisional Headquarters were about to move.
+
+A puncture kept me at Bailleul after the others had gone on to Locre.
+Grimers stood by to help. We lunched well, and buying some supplies
+started off along the Ypres road. By this time our kit had accumulated.
+It is difficult enough to pass lorries on a greasy road at any time.
+With an immense weight on the carrier it is almost impossible. So we
+determined to go by Dranoutre. An unfortunate bump dispersed my blankets
+and my ground-sheet in the mud. Grimers said my language might have
+dried them. Finally, that other despatch rider arrived swathed about
+with some filthy, grey, forlorn indescribables.
+
+We were quartered in a large schoolroom belonging to the Convent. We had
+plenty of space and a table to feed at. Fresh milk and butter we could
+buy from the nuns, while a market-gardener just across the road supplied
+us with a sack of miscellaneous vegetables--potatoes, carrots, turnips,
+onions, leeks--for practically nothing. We lived gloriously. There was
+just enough work to make us feel we really were doing something, and not
+enough to make us wish we were on the Staff. Bridge we played every hour
+of the day, and "Pollers," our sergeant, would occasionally try a
+little flutter in Dominoes and Patience.
+
+At Bailleul the Skipper had suggested our learning to manage the
+unmechanical horse. The suggestion became an order. We were bumped round
+unmercifully at first, until many of us were so sore that the touch of a
+motor-cycle saddle on _pave_ was like hot-iron to a tender skin. Then we
+were handed over to a friendly sergeant, who believed in more
+gentlemanly methods, and at Locre we had great rides--though Pollers,
+who was gently unhorsed, is still firmly convinced that wind-mills form
+the finest deterrent to cavalry.
+
+In an unlucky moment two of us had suggested that we should like to
+learn signaller's work, so we fell upon evil days. First we went out for
+cable-drill. Sounds simple? But it is more arduous and dangerous than
+any despatch riding. If you "pay out" too quickly, you get tangled up in
+the wire and go with it nicely over the drum. If you pay out too slowly,
+you strangle the man on the horse behind you. The worst torture in the
+world is paying out at the fast trot over cobbles. First you can't hold
+on, and if you can you can't pay out regularly.
+
+Cable-drill is simply nothing compared to the real laying of cable. We
+did it twice--once in rain and once in snow. The rainy day I paid out,
+I was never more miserable in my life than I was after two miles. Only
+hot coffee and singing good songs past cheery Piou-pious brought me
+home. The snowy day I ran with ladders, and, perched on the topmost
+rung, endeavoured to pass the wire round a buxom tree-trunk. Then, when
+it was round, it would always go slack before I could get it tied up
+tightly.
+
+It sounds so easy, laying a wire. But I swear it is the most wearying
+business in the world--punching holes in the ground with a 16-lb.
+hammer, running up poles that won't go straight, unhooking wire that has
+caught in a branch or in the eaves of a house, taking the strain of a
+cable to prevent man and ladder and wire coming on top of you, when the
+man who pays out has forgotten to pay. Have a thought for the wretched
+fellows who are getting out a wire on a dark and snowy night, troubled
+perhaps by persistent snipers and frequent shells! Shed a tear for the
+miserable linesman sent out to find where the line is broken or
+defective....
+
+When there was no chance of "a run" we would go for walks towards
+Kemmel. At the time the Germans were shelling the hill, but occasionally
+they would break off, and then we would unofficially go up and see what
+had happened.
+
+Now Mont Kemmel is nearly covered with trees. I have never been in a
+wood under shell fire, and I do not wish to be. Where the Germans had
+heavily shelled Kemmel there were great holes, trees thrown about and
+riven and scarred and crushed--a terrific immensity of blasphemous
+effort. It was as if some great beast, wounded mortally, had plunged
+into a forest, lashing and biting and tearing in his agony until he
+died.
+
+On one side of the hill was a little crazy cottage which had
+marvellously escaped. Three shells had fallen within ten yards of it.
+Two had not burst, and the other, shrapnel, had exploded in the earth.
+The owner came out, a trifling, wizened old man in the usual Belgian cap
+and blue overalls. We had a talk, using the _lingua franca_ of French,
+English with a Scottish accent, German, and the few words of Dutch I
+could remember.
+
+We dug up for him a large bit of the casing of the shrapnel. He examined
+it fearfully. It was an 11-inch shell, I think, nearly as big as his wee
+grotesque self. Then he made a noise, which we took to be a laugh, and
+told us that he had been very frightened in his little house (haeusling),
+and his cat, an immense white Tom, had been more frightened still. But
+he knew the Germans could not hit him. Thousands and thousands of
+Germans had gone by, and a little after the last German came the
+English. "Les Anglais sont bons."
+
+This he said with an air of finality. It is a full-blooded judgment
+which, though it sounds a trifle exiguous to describe our manifold
+heroic efforts, is a sort of perpetual epithet. The children use it
+confidingly when they run to our men in the cafes. The peasants use it
+as a parenthetical verdict whenever they mention our name. The French
+fellows use it, and I have heard a German prisoner say the same.
+
+A few days later those who lived on Kemmel were "evacuated." They were
+rounded up into the Convent yard, men and women and children, with their
+hens and pigs. At first they were angry and sorrowful; but nobody, not
+even the most indignant refugee, could resist our military policemen,
+and in three-quarters of an hour they all trudged off, cheerfully
+enough, along the road to Bailleul.
+
+The wee grotesque man and his immense white cat were not with them.
+Perhaps they still live on Kemmel. Some time I shall go and see....
+
+If we did not play Bridge after our walks, we would look in at the
+theatre or stroll across to dinner and Bridge with Gibson and his
+brother officers of the K.O.S.B., then billeted at Locre.
+
+Not all convents have theatres: this was a special convent. The Signal
+Company slept in the theatre, and of an evening all the kit would be
+moved aside. One of the military policemen could play anything; so we
+danced and sang until the lights went out. The star performer was
+"Spot," the servant of an A.D.C.
+
+"Spot" was a little man with a cheerful squint. He knew everything that
+had ever been recited, and his knowledge of the more ungodly songs was
+immense. He would start off with an imitation of Mr H.B. Irving, and a
+very good imitation it would be--with soft music. He would leave the
+Signallers thrilled and silent. The lights flashed up, and "Spot" darted
+off on some catchy doggerel of an almost talented obscenity. In private
+life Spot was the best company imaginable. He could not talk for a
+minute without throwing in a bit of a recitation and striking an
+attitude. I have only known him serious on two subjects--his master and
+Posh. He would pour out with the keenest delight little stories of how
+his master endeavoured to correct his servant's accent. There was a
+famous story of "a n'orse"--but that is untellable.
+
+Posh may be defined, very roughly, as a useless striving after
+gentlemanly culture. Sometimes a chauffeur or an H.Q. clerk would
+endeavour to speak very correct English in front of Spot.
+
+"'E was poshy, my dear boy, positively poshy. 'E made me shiver until I
+cried. 'Smith, old man,' I said to 'im, 'you can't do it. You're not
+born to it nor bred to it. Those that try is just demeaning themselves.
+Posh, my dear boy, pure posh.'"
+
+And Spot would give a cruel imitation of the wretched Smith's mincing
+English. The punishment was the more bitter, because all the world knew
+that Spot could speak the King's English as well as anybody if only he
+chose. To the poshy alone was Spot unkind. He was a generous,
+warm-hearted little man, with real wisdom and a fine appreciation of men
+and things.... There were other performers of the usual type, young men
+who sang about the love-light in her eyes, older men with crude songs,
+and a Scotsman with an expressionless face, who mumbled about we could
+never discover what.
+
+The audience was usually strengthened by some half-witted girls that the
+Convent educated, and two angelic nuns. Luckily for them, they only
+understood a slow and grammatical English, and listened to crude songs
+and sentimental songs with the same expression of maternal content.
+
+Our work at Locre was not confined to riding and cable-laying. The 15th
+Brigade and two battalions of the 13th were fighting crazily at Ypres,
+the 14th had come up to Dranoutre, and the remaining two battalions of
+the 13th were at Neuve Eglise.
+
+I had two more runs to the Ypres district before we left Locre. On the
+first the road was tolerable to Ypres, though near the city I was nearly
+blown off my bicycle by the fire of a concealed battery of 75's. The
+houses at the point where the Rue de Lille enters the Square had been
+blown to bits. The Cloth Hall had barely been touched. In its glorious
+dignity it was beautiful.
+
+Beyond Ypres, on the Hooge Road, I first experienced the extreme
+neighbourhood of a "J.J." It fell about 90 yards in front of me and 20
+yards off the road. It makes a curiously low droning sound as it falls,
+like the groan of a vastly sorrowful soul in hell,--so I wrote at the
+time: then there's a gigantic rushing plunk and overwhelming crash as if
+all the houses in the world were falling.
+
+On the way back the road, which had been fairly greasy, became
+practically impassable. I struggled on until my lamp failed (sheer
+carelessness--I ought to have seen to it before starting), and a gale
+arose which blew me all over the road. So I left my motor-bicycle safely
+behind a cottage, and started tramping back to H.Q. by the light of my
+pocket flash-lamp. It was a pitch-black night. I was furiously hungry,
+and stopped at the first inn and gorged coffee with rum, and a large
+sandwich of bread and butter and fat bacon. I had barely started
+again--it had begun to pour--when a car came along with a French
+staff-officer inside. I stopped it, saying in hurried and weighty tones
+that I was carrying an important despatch (I had nothing on me, I am
+afraid, but a trifling bunch of receipts), and the rest of the way I
+travelled lapped luxuriously in soft furs.
+
+The second time I rode along a frozen road between white fields. All the
+shells sounded alarmingly near. The noise in Ypres was terrific. At my
+destination I came across some prisoners of the Prussian Guard, fierce
+and enormous men, nearly all with reddish hair, very sullen and rude.
+
+From accounts that have been published of the first battle of Ypres, it
+might be inferred that the British Army knew it was on the point of
+being annihilated. A despatch rider, though of course he does not know
+very much of the real meaning of the military situation, has unequalled
+opportunities for finding out the opinions and spirit of the men. Now
+one of us went to Ypres every day and stopped for a few minutes to
+discuss the state of affairs with other despatch riders and with
+signal-sergeants. Right through the battle we were confident; in fact
+the idea that the line might be broken never entered our heads. We were
+suffering very heavily. That we knew. Nothing like the shell fire had
+ever been heard before. Nobody realised how serious the situation must
+have been until the accounts were published.
+
+Huggie has a perfect mania for getting frightened; so one day, instead
+of leaving the routine matter that he carried at a place whence it might
+be forwarded at leisure, he rode along the Menin road to the Chateau at
+Hooge, the headquarters of the 15th Brigade. He came back quietly happy,
+telling us that he had had a good time, though the noise had been a
+little overwhelming. We learned afterwards that the enemy had been
+registering very accurately upon the Hooge road.
+
+So the time passed without any excitement until November 23, when first
+we caught hold of a definite rumour that we should be granted leave. We
+existed in restless excitement until the 27th. On that great day we were
+told that we should be allowed a week's leave. We solemnly drew lots,
+and I drew the second batch.
+
+We left the Convent at Locre in a dream, and took up quarters at St Jans
+Cappel, two miles west of Bailleul. We hardly noticed that our billet
+was confined and uncomfortable. Certainly we never realised that we
+should stop there until the spring. The first batch went off
+hilariously, and with slow pace our day drew nearer and nearer.
+
+You may think it a little needless of me to write about my leave, if you
+do not remember that we despatch riders of the Fifth Division enlisted
+on or about August 6. Few then realised that England had gone to war.
+Nobody realised what sort of a war the war was going to be. When we
+returned in the beginning of December we were Martians. For three months
+we had been vividly soldiers. We had been fighting not in a savage
+country, but in a civilised country burnt by war; and it was because of
+this that the sights of war had struck us so fiercely that when we came
+back our voyage in the good ship _Archimedes_ seemed so many years
+distant. Besides, if I were not to tell you of my leave it would make
+such a gap in my memories that I should scarcely know how to continue my
+tale....
+
+The week dragged more slowly than I can describe. Short-handed, we had
+plenty of work to do, but it was all routine work, which gave us too
+much time to think. There was also a crazy doubt of the others' return.
+They were due back a few hours before we started. If they fell ill or
+missed the boat...! And the fools were motor-cycling to and from
+Boulogne!
+
+On the great night we prepared some food for them, and having packed our
+kits, tried to sleep. As the hour drew near we listened excitedly for
+the noise of their engines. Several false alarms disturbed us: first, a
+despatch rider from the Third Division, and then another from the Corps.
+At last we heard the purr of three engines together, and then a moment
+later the faint rustle of others in the distance. We recognised the
+engines and jumped up. All the birds came home save one. George had
+never quite recovered from his riding exercises. Slight blood poisoning
+had set in. His leave had been extended at home. So poor "Tommy," who
+had joined us at Beuvry, was compelled to remain behind.
+
+Violent question and answer for an hour, then we piled ourselves on our
+light lorry. Singing like angels we rattled into Bailleul. Just opposite
+Corps Headquarters, our old billet, we found a little crowd waiting.
+None of us could talk much for the excitement. We just wandered about
+greeting friends. I met again that stoutest of warriors, Mr Potter of
+the 15th Artillery Brigade, a friend of Festubert days. Then a battalion
+of French infantry passed through, gallant and cheerful men. At last the
+old dark-green buses rolled up, and about three in the morning we
+pounded off at a good fifteen miles an hour along the Cassel road.
+
+Two of us sat on top, for it was a gorgeous night. We rattled over the
+_pave_ alongside multitudinous transport sleeping at the side of the
+road--through Metern, through Caestre of pleasant memories, and south to
+Hazebrouck. Our driver was a man of mark, a racing motorist in times of
+peace. He left the other buses and swung along rapidly by himself. He
+slowed down for nothing. Just before Hazebrouck we caught up a French
+convoy. I do not quite know what happened. The Frenchmen took cover in
+one ditch. We swayed past, half in the other, at a good round pace.
+Waggons seemed to disappear under our wheels, and frightened horses
+plunged violently across the road. But we passed them without a
+scratch--to be stopped by the level-crossing at Hazebrouck. There we
+filled up with coffee and cognac, while the driver told us of his
+adventures in Antwerp.
+
+We rumbled out of Hazebrouck towards St Omer. It was a clear dawn in
+splashes of pure colour. All the villages were peaceful, untouched by
+war. When we came to St Omer it was quite light. All the soldiers in the
+town looked amateurish. We could not make out what was the matter with
+them, until somebody noticed that their buttons shone. We drew up in the
+square, the happiest crew imaginable, but with a dignity such as
+befitted chosen N.C.O.'s and officers.
+
+That was the first time I saw St Omer. When last I came to it I saw
+little, because I arrived in a motor-ambulance and left in a
+hospital-train.
+
+The top of the bus was crowded, and we talked "shop" together. _Sixth
+Division's having a pretty cushy time, what?--So you were at Mons!_ (in
+a tone of respect)--_I don't mind their shells, and I don't mind their
+machine-guns, but their Minenwerfer are the frozen limit!--I suppose
+there's no chance of our missing the boat. Yes, it was a pretty fair
+scrap--Smith? He's gone. Silly fool, wanted to have a look round--Full
+of buck? Rather! Yes, heard there's a pretty good show on at the
+Frivolity--Beastly cold on top of this old wheezer_.
+
+It was, but none of us cared a scrap. We looked at the sign-posts that
+showed the distance to Boulogne, and then pretended that we had not seen
+them. Lurching and skidding and toiling we came to the top of the hill
+above Boulogne. With screaming brakes we rattled down to the harbour.
+That old sinner, Sergeant Maguire, who was in charge of us corporals,
+made all arrangements efficiently. We embarked, and after a year of
+Sundays cast off.
+
+There was a certain swell on, and Mr Potter, the bravest of men, grew
+greener and greener. My faith in mankind went.
+
+We saw a dark line on the horizon.
+
+"By Jove, there's England!" We all produced our field-glasses and looked
+through them very carefully for quite a long time.
+
+"So it is. Funny old country"--a pause--"Makes one feel quite
+sentimental, just like the books. That's what we're fighting for, I
+suppose. Wouldn't fight for dirty old Dover! Wonder if they still charge
+you a penny for each sardine. I suppose we'll have to draw the blinds
+all the way up to London. Not a safe country by any means, far rather
+stop in the jolly old trenches."
+
+"You'll get the white feather, old man."
+
+"No pretty young thing would give it you. Why, you wouldn't look
+medically fit in mufti!"
+
+"Fancy seeing a woman who isn't dirty and can talk one's own lingo!"
+
+So we came to Folkestone, and all the people on the pier smiled at us.
+We scuttled ashore and shook ourselves for delight. There was a
+policeman, a postman. Who are these fussy fellows with badges on their
+arms? Special constables, of course!
+
+Spurning cigarettes and bovril we rushed to the bar. We all noticed the
+cleanness of the barmaid, her beauty, the neatness of her dress, her
+cultivated talk. We almost squabbled about what drinks we should have
+first. Finally, we divided into parties--the Beers and the
+Whisky-and-Sodas. Then there were English papers to buy, and, of course,
+we must have a luncheon-basket....
+
+The smell of the musty S.-E. & C.R. compartment was the scent of eastern
+roses. We sniffed with joy in the tunnels. We read all the notices with
+care. Nearing London we became silent. Quite disregarding the order to
+lower the blinds, we gazed from the bridge at a darkened London and the
+searchlight beams. Feverishly we packed our kit and stood up in the
+carriage. We jerked into the flare of Victoria. Dazzled and confused, we
+looked at the dense crowd of beaming, anxious people. There was a tug at
+my elbow, and a triumphant voice shouted--
+
+"I've found him! Here he is! There's your Mother." ...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This strange familiar country seemed to us clean, careless, and full of
+men. The streets were clean; the men and women were clean. Out in
+Flanders a little grime came as a matter of course. One's uniform was
+dirty. Well, it had seen service. There was no need to be particular
+about the set of the tunic and the exact way accoutrements should be
+put on. But here the few men in khaki sprinkled about the streets had
+their buttons cleaned and not a thing was out of place. We wondered
+which of them belonged to the New Armies. The women, too, were clean and
+beautiful. This sounds perhaps to you a foolish thing to say, but it is
+true. The Flemish woman is not so clean as she is painted, and as for
+women dressed with any attempt at fashionable display--we had seen none
+since August. Nadine at Dour had been neat; Helene at Carlepont had been
+companionable; the pretty midinette at Maast had been friendly and not
+over-dirty. For a day or two after I returned to my own country I could
+not imagine how anybody ever could leave it.
+
+And all the people were free from care. However cheerful those brave but
+irritating folk who live behind the line may be, they have always
+shadows in their eyes. We had never been to a village through which the
+Germans had not passed. Portly and hilarious the Teuton may have shown
+himself--kindly and well-behaved he undoubtedly was in many
+places--there came with him a terror which stayed after he had gone,
+just as a mist sways above the ground after the night has flown.
+
+At first we thought that no one at home cared about the war--then we
+realised it was impossible for anybody to care about the war who had not
+seen war. People might be intensely interested in the course of
+operations. They might burn for their country's success, and flame out
+against those who threatened her. They might suffer torments of anxiety
+for a brother in danger, or the tortures of grief for a brother who had
+died. The FACT of war, the terror and the shame, the bestiality and the
+awful horror, the pity and the disgust--they could never _know_ war. So
+we thought them careless....
+
+Again, though we had been told very many had enlisted, the streets
+seemed ludicrously full of men. In the streets of Flanders there are
+women and children and old men and others. These others would give all
+that they had to put on uniform and march gravely or gaily to the
+trenches. In Flanders a man who is fit and wears no uniform is instantly
+suspected of espionage. I am grinding no axe. I am advocating nothing or
+attacking nothing. I am merely stating as a fact that, suspicious and
+contemptuous as we had been in Flanders of every able-bodied man who was
+not helping to defend his country, it seemed grotesque to us to find so
+many civilian men in the streets of the country to which we had
+returned.
+
+Of the heavenly quietness and decency of life, of late breakfasts and
+later dinners, there is no need to tell, but even before the week was up
+unrest troubled us. The Division might go violently into action. The
+Germans might break through. The "old Div." would be wanting us, and we
+who felt towards the Division as others feel towards their Regiments
+were eager to get back....
+
+On the boat I met Gibson. At Boulogne we clambered into the same bus and
+passed the time in sipping old rum, eating chocolate biscuits, reading
+the second volume of 'Sinister Street,' and sleeping. At St Omer our
+craving for an omelette nearly lost us the bus. Then we slept. All that
+I can remember of the rest of the journey is that we stopped near
+Bailleul. An anxious corporal popped his head in.
+
+"Mr Brown here?"
+
+"Ye--e--s," sleepily, "what the devil do you want?"
+
+"Our battery's in action, sir, a few miles from here. I've got your
+horses ready waiting, sir."
+
+Mr Brown was thoroughly awake in a moment. He disturbed everybody
+collecting his kit. Then he vanished.
+
+We were late at Bailleul, and there was no one to meet us. The Cyclists
+as usual came to our help. Their gig was waiting, and climbing into it
+we drove furiously to St Jans Cappel. Making some sort of beds for
+ourselves, we fell asleep. When we woke up in the morning our leave was
+a dream.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[22] Here are kindly people.
+
+[23] French, Flemish, and German slang expression. Done for!
+
+[24] An abbreviation for the general in command of the Divisional
+Artillery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ST JANS CAPPEL.
+
+
+Soon after our return there were rumours of a grand attack. Headquarters
+positively sizzled with the most expensive preparations. At a given word
+the Staff were to dash out in motor-cars to a disreputable tavern, so
+that they could see the shells bursting. A couple of despatch riders
+were to keep with them in order to fetch their cars when the day's work
+was over. A mobile reserve of motor-cyclists was to be established in a
+farm under cover.
+
+The whole scheme was perfect. There was good rabbit-shooting near the
+tavern. The atmosphere inside was so thick that it actually induced
+slumber. The landlady possessed an excellent stove, upon which the
+Staff's lunch, prepared with quiet genius at St Jans, might be heated
+up. The place was dirty enough to give all those in authority, who might
+come round to see that the British Army was really doing something, a
+vivid conception of the horrors of war. And, as I have said, there was a
+slope behind the road from which lots and lots of shells could be seen
+bursting.
+
+The word came. We arrived at the tavern before dawn. The Staff sauntered
+about outside in delicious anticipation. We all looked at our watches.
+Punctually at six the show began. Guns of all shapes and sizes had been
+concentrated. They made an overwhelming noise. Over the German trenches
+on the near slope of the Messines ridge flashed multitudinous points of
+flame. The Germans were being furiously shelled. The dawn came up while
+the Staff were drinking their matutinal tea. The Staff set itself
+sternly to work. Messages describing events at La Bassee poured in. They
+were conscientiously read and rushed over the wires to our brigades. The
+guns were making more noise than they had ever made before. The Germans
+were cowering in their trenches. It was all our officers could do to
+hold back their men, who were straining like hounds in a leash to get at
+the hated foe. A shell fell among some of the gunners' transport and
+wounded a man and two horses. That stiffened us. The news was flashed
+over the wire to G.H.Q. The transport was moved rapidly, but in good
+order, to a safer place. The guns fired more furiously than ever.
+
+As soon as there was sufficient light, the General's A.D.C., crammed
+full of the lust for blood, went out and shot some rabbits and some
+indescribable birds, who by this time were petrified with fear. They had
+never heard such a noise before. That other despatch rider sat
+comfortably in a car, finished at his leisure the second volume of
+'Sinister Street,' and wrote a lurid description of a modern battle.
+
+Before the visitors came, the scene was improved by the construction of
+a large dug-out near the tavern. It is true that if the Staff had taken
+to the dug-out they would most certainly have been drowned. That did not
+matter. Every well-behaved Divisional Staff must have a dug-out near its
+Advanced Headquarters. It is always "done."
+
+Never was a Division so lucky in its visitors. A certain young prince of
+high lineage arrived. Everybody saluted at the same time. He was, I
+think, duly impressed by the atmosphere of the tavern, the sight of the
+Staff's maps, the inundated dug-outs, the noise of the guns and the
+funny balls of smoke that the shells made when they exploded over the
+German lines.
+
+What gave this battle a humorous twist for all time was the delectable
+visit of a Cabinet Minister. He came in a car and brought with him his
+own knife and fork and a loaf of bread as his contribution to the
+Divisional Lunch. When he entered the tavern he smelt among other smells
+the delicious odour of rabbit-pie. With hurried but charming
+condescension he left his loaf on the stove, where it dried for a day or
+two until the landlady had the temerity to appropriate it. He was fed,
+so far as I remember on--
+
+                     Soup.
+                     Fish.
+     Rabbit-pie.   Potatoes.   Cabbage.
+                  Apple-tart.
+        Fruit.      Coffee.    Liqueurs.
+
+and after lunch, I am told, showed a marked disinclination to ascend the
+hill and watch the shells bursting. He was only a "civvy."[25]
+
+The battle lasted about ten days. Each morning the Staff, like lazy men
+who are "something in the city," arrived a little later at the tavern.
+Each afternoon they departed a little earlier. The rabbits decreased in
+number, and finally, when two days running the A.D.C. had been able to
+shoot nothing at all, the Division returned for good to the Chateau at
+St Jans Cappel.
+
+For this mercy the despatch riders were truly grateful. Sitting the
+whole day in the tavern, we had all contracted bad headaches. Even
+chess, the 'Red Magazine,' and the writing of letters, could do nothing
+to dissipate our unutterable boredom. Never did we pass that tavern
+afterwards without a shudder of disgust. With joyous content we heard a
+month or two later that it had been closed for providing drinks after
+hours.
+
+Officially the grand attack had taken this course. The French to the
+north had been held up by the unexpected strength of the German defence.
+The 3rd Division on our immediate left had advanced a trifle, for the
+Gordons had made a perilous charge into the Petit Bois, a wood at the
+bottom of the Wytschaete Heights. And the Royal Scots had put in some
+magnificent work, for which they were afterwards very properly
+congratulated. The Germans in front of our Division were so cowed by our
+magniloquent display of gunnery that they have remained moderately quiet
+ever since.
+
+After these December manoeuvres nothing of importance happened on our
+front until the spring, when the Germans, whom we had tickled with
+intermittent gunnery right through the winter, began to retaliate with
+a certain energy.
+
+The Division that has no history is not necessarily happy. There were
+portions of the line, it is true, which provided a great deal of comfort
+and very little danger. Fine dug-outs were constructed--you have
+probably seen them in the illustrated papers. The men were more at home
+in such trenches than in the ramshackle farms behind the lines. These
+show trenches were emphatically the exception. The average trench on the
+line during last winter was neither comfortable nor safe. Yellow clay,
+six inches to four feet or more of stinking water, many corpses behind
+the trenches buried just underneath the surface-crust, and in front of
+the trenches not buried at all, inveterate sniping from a slightly
+superior position--these are not pleasant bedfellows. The old Division
+(or rather the new Division--the infantrymen of the old Division were
+now pitifully few) worked right hard through the winter. When the early
+spring came and the trenches were dry, the Division was sent north to
+bear a hand in the two bloodiest actions of the war. So far as I know,
+in the whole history of British participation in this war there has
+never been a more murderous fight than one of these two actions--and
+the Division, with slight outside help, managed the whole affair.
+
+Twice in the winter there was an attempted _rapprochement_ between the
+Germans and ourselves. The more famous gave the Division a mention by
+"Eyewitness," so we all became swollen with pride.
+
+On the Kaiser's birthday one-and-twenty large shells were dropped
+accurately into a farm suspected of being a battalion or brigade
+headquarters. The farm promptly acknowledged the compliment by blowing
+up, and all round it little explosions followed. Nothing pleases a
+gunner more than to strike a magazine. He always swears he knew it was
+there the whole time, and, as gunners are dangerous people to quarrel
+with, we always pretended to believe the tale.
+
+There are many people in England still who cannot stomach the story of
+the Christmas truce. "Out there," we cannot understand why. Good
+fighting men respect good fighting men. On our front, and on the fronts
+of other divisions, the Germans had behaved throughout the winter with a
+passable gentlemanliness. Besides, neither the British nor the German
+soldier--with the possible exception of the Prussians--has been able to
+stoke up that virulent hate which devastates so many German and British
+homes. A certain lance-corporal puts the matter thus:[26]--
+
+"We're fightin' for somethink what we've got. Those poor beggars is
+fightin' cos they've got to. An' old Bill Kayser's fightin' for
+somethin' what 'e'll never get. But 'e will get somethink, and that's a
+good 'iding!"[27]
+
+We even had a sneaking regard for that "cunning old bird, Kayser Bill."
+Our treatment of prisoners explains the Christmas Truce. The British
+soldier, except when he is smarting under some dirty trick, suffering
+under terrible loss, or maddened by fighting or fatigue, treats his
+prisoners with a tolerant, rather contemptuous kindness. May God in His
+mercy help any poor German who falls into the hands of a British soldier
+when the said German has "done the dirty" or has "turned nasty"! There
+is no judge so remorseless, no executioner so ingenious in making the
+punishment fit the crime.
+
+This is what I wrote home a day or two after Christmas: From six on
+Christmas Eve to six in the evening on Christmas Day there was a truce
+between two regiments of our Division and the Germans opposite them.
+Heads popped up and were not sniped. Greetings were called across. One
+venturesome, enthusiastic German got out of his trench and stood waving
+a branch of Christmas Tree. Soon there was a fine pow-wow going on.
+Cigars were exchanged for tobacco. Friendship was pledged in socks. The
+Germans brought out some beer and the English some rum. Finally, on
+Christmas Day, there was a great concert and dance. The Germans were
+spruce, elderly men, keen and well fed, with buttons cleaned for the
+occasion. They appeared to have plenty of supplies, and were fully
+equipped with everything necessary for a winter campaign. A third
+battalion, wisely but churlishly, refused these seasonable advances, and
+shot four men who appeared with a large cask of what was later
+discovered to be beer....
+
+"The Div." were billeted in a chateau on the slope of a hill
+three-quarters of a mile above St Jans Cappel. This desirable residence
+stands in two acres of garden, just off the road. At the gate was a
+lodge. Throughout the winter we despatch riders lived in two small rooms
+of this lodge. We averaged fourteen in number. Two were out with the
+brigades, leaving twelve to live, eat, and sleep in two rooms, each
+about 15 ft. by 8 ft. We were distinctly cramped, and cursed the day
+that had brought us to St Jans. It was a cruel stroke that gave us for
+our winter quarters the worst billets we had ever suffered.
+
+As we became inclined to breakfast late, nine o'clock parade was
+instituted. Breakfast took place before or after, as the spirit listed.
+Bacon, tea, and bread came from the cook. We added porridge and
+occasionally eggs. The porridge we half-cooked the night before.
+
+After breakfast we began to clean our bicycles, no light task, and the
+artificers started on repairs. The cleaning process was usually broken
+into by the arrival of the post and the papers of the day before.
+Cleaning the bicycles, sweeping out the rooms, reading and writing
+letters, brought us to dinner at 1.
+
+This consisted of bully or fresh meat stew with vegetables (or
+occasionally roast or fried meat), bread and jam. As we became more
+luxurious we would provide for ourselves Yorkshire pudding, which we
+discovered trying to make pancakes, and pancakes, which we discovered
+trying to make Yorkshire pudding. Worcester Sauce and the invaluable
+curry powder were never wanting. After dinner we smoked a lethargic
+pipe.
+
+In the afternoon it was customary to take some exercise. To reduce the
+strain on our back tyres we used to trudge manfully down into the
+village, or, if we were feeling energetic, to the ammunition column a
+couple of miles away. Any distance over two miles we covered on
+motor-cycles. Their use demoralised us. Our legs shrunk away.
+
+Sometimes two or three of us would ride to a sand-pit on Mont Noir and
+blaze away with our revolvers. Incidentally, not one of us had fired a
+shot in anger since the war began. We treated our revolvers as
+unnecessary luggage. In time we became skilled in their use, and
+thereafter learnt to keep them moderately clean. We had been served out
+with revolvers at Chatham, but had never practised with them--except at
+Carlow for a morning, and then we were suffering from the effects of
+inoculation. They may be useful when we get to Germany.
+
+Shopping in Bailleul was less strenuous. We were always buying something
+for supper--a kilo of liver, some onions, a few sausages--anything that
+could be cooked by the unskilled on a paraffin-stove. Then after
+shopping there were cafes we could drop into, sure of a welcome. It was
+impossible to live from November to March "within easy reach of town"
+and not make friends.
+
+Milk for tea came from the farm in which No. 1 Section of the Signal
+Company was billeted. When first we were quartered at St Jans this
+section wallowed in some mud a little above the chateau.
+
+Because I had managed to make myself understood to some German
+prisoners, I was looked upon as a great linguist, and vulgarly credited
+with a knowledge of all the European languages. So I was sent, together
+with the Quartermaster-Sergeant and the Sergeant-Major, on billeting
+expeditions. Arranging for quarters at the farm, I made great friends
+with the farmer. He was a tall, thin, lithe old man, with a crumpled
+wife and prodigiously large family. He was a man of affairs, too, for
+once a month in peace time he would drive into Hazebrouck. While his
+wife got me the milk, we used to sit by the fire and smoke our pipes and
+discuss the terrible war and the newspapers. One of the most
+embarrassing moments I have ever experienced was when he bade me tell
+the sergeants that he regarded them as brothers, and loved them all. I
+said it first in French, that he might hear, and then in English. The
+sergeants blushed, while the old man beamed.
+
+We loved the Flemish, and, for the most part, they loved us. When
+British soldiers arrived in a village the men became clean, the women
+smart, and the boys inevitably procured putties and wore them with
+pride. The British soldier is certainly not insular. He tries hard to
+understand the words and ways of his neighbours. He has a rough tact, a
+crude courtesy, and a great-hearted generosity. In theory no task could
+be more difficult than the administration of the British Area. Even a
+friendly military occupation is an uncomfortable burden. Yet never have
+I known any case of real ill-feeling. Personally, during my nine months
+at the Front, I have always received from the French and the Belgians
+amazing kindness and consideration. As an officer I came into contact
+with village and town officials over questions of billets and
+requisitions. In any difficulty I received courteous assistance. No
+trouble was too great; no time was too valuable....
+
+After tea of cakes and rolls the bridge-players settled down to a quiet
+game, with pipes to hand and whisky and siphons on the sideboard. We
+took it in turns to cook some delicacy for supper at 8--sausages,
+curried sardines, liver and bacon, or--rarely but joyously--fish. At one
+time or another we feasted on all the luxuries, but fish was rarer than
+rubies. When we had it we did not care if we stank out the whole lodge
+with odours of its frying. We would lie down to sleep content in a
+thick fishy, paraffin-y, dripping-y atmosphere. When I came home I could
+not think what the delicious smell was in a certain street. Then my
+imagination struck out a picture--Grimers laboriously frying a dab over
+a smoky paraffin-stove.
+
+On occasions after supper we would brew a large jorum of good rum-punch,
+sing songs with roaring choruses, and finish up the evening with a good
+old scrap over somebody else's bed. The word went round to "mobilise,"
+and we would all stand ready, each on his bed, to repel boarders. If the
+sanctity of your bed were violated, the intruder would be cast
+vigorously into outer darkness. Another song, another drink, a final
+pipe, and to bed.
+
+Our Christmas would have been a grand day if it had not been away from
+home.
+
+At eight o'clock there was breakfast of porridge, bacon and eggs, and
+bloaters--everybody in the best of spirits. About nine the Skipper
+presented us with cards from the King and Queen. Then the mail came in,
+but it was poor. By the time we had tidied up our places and done a
+special Christmas shave and wash, we were called upon to go down to the
+cookhouse and sign for Princess Mary's Christmas gift--a good pipe, and
+in a pleasant little brass box lay a Christmas card, a photograph, a
+packet of cigarettes, and another of excellent tobacco.
+
+It was now lunch-time--steak and potatoes.
+
+The afternoon was spent on preparations for our great and unexampled
+dinner. Grimers printed the menu, and while I made some cold curried
+sardines, the rest went down into the village to stimulate the landlady
+of the inn where we were going to dine.
+
+In the village a brigade was billeted, and that brigade was, of course,
+"on the wire." It was arranged that the despatch riders next on the list
+should take their motor-cycles down and be summoned over the wire if
+they were needed. An order had come round that unimportant messages were
+to be kept until the morning.
+
+We dined in the large kitchen of the _Maison Commune Estaminet_, at a
+long table decorated with mistletoe and holly. The dinner--the result of
+two days' "scrounging" under the direction of George--was too good to be
+true. We toasted each other and sang all the songs we knew. Two of the
+Staff clerks wandered in and told us we were the best of all possible
+despatch riders. We drank to them uproariously. Then a Scotsman turned
+up with a noisy recitation. Finally, we all strolled home up the hill
+singing loudly and pleasantly, very exhilarated, in sure and certain
+belief we had spent the best of all possible evenings.
+
+In the dwelling of the Staff there was noise of revelry. Respectable
+captains with false noses peered out of windows. Our Fat Boy declaimed
+in the signal office on the iniquities of the artillery telegraphists.
+Sadders sent gentle messages of greeting over the wires. He was still a
+little piqued at his failure to secure the piper of the K.O.S.B., who
+had been commandeered by the Staff. Sadders waited for him until early
+morning and then steered him to our lodge, but the piper was by then too
+tired to play.
+
+Here is our bill of fare:--
+
+               CHRISTMAS, 1914.
+
+                   DINNER
+                   OF THE
+     TEN SURVIVING MOTOR-CYCLISTS OF THE
+           FAMOUS FIFTH DIVISION.
+
+           Sardins tres Moutard.
+                   Potage.
+       Dindon Roti-Saucisses. Oise Roti.
+          Petits Choux de Bruxelles.
+              Pommes de Terre.
+            Pouding de Noel Rhum.
+           Dessert. Cafe. Liqueurs.
+      _Vins._--Champagne. Moselle. Port.
+            Benedictine. Whisky.
+
+
+On the reverse page we put our battle-honours--Mons, Le Cateau,
+Crepy-en-Valois, the Marne, the Aisne, La Bassee, the Defence of
+Ypres.[28]
+
+We beat the Staff on the sprouts, but the Staff countered by
+appropriating the piper.
+
+Work dwindled until it became a farce. One run for each despatch rider
+every third day was the average. St Jans was not the place we should
+have chosen for a winter resort. Life became monotonous, and we all with
+one accord began applying for commissions. Various means were used to
+break the monotony. Grimers, under the Skipper's instructions, began to
+plant vegetables for the spring, but I do not think he ever got much
+beyond mustard and cress. On particularly unpleasant days we were told
+off to make fascines. N'Soon assisted the Quartermaster-Sergeant. Cecil
+did vague things with the motor-lorry. I was called upon to write the
+Company's War Diary. Even the Staff became restless and took to
+night-walks behind the trenches. If it had not been for the generous
+supply of "days off" that the Skipper allowed us, we should by February
+have begun to gibber.
+
+Despatches were of two kinds--ordinary and priority. "Priority"
+despatches could only be sent by the more important members of the
+Staff. They were supposed to be important, were marked "priority" in the
+corner, and taken at once in a hurry. Ordinary despatches went by the
+morning and evening posts. During the winter a regular system of
+motor-cyclist posts was organised right through the British Area. A
+message could be sent from Neuve Eglise to Chartres in about two days.
+Our posts formed the first or last stage of the journey. The morning
+post left at 7.30 A.M., and the evening at 3.30 P.M. All the units of
+the division were visited.
+
+If the roads were moderately good and no great movements of troops were
+proceeding, the post took about 1-1/4 hours; so the miserable postman
+was late either for breakfast or for tea. It was routine work pure and
+simple. After six weeks we knew every stone in the roads. The postman
+never came under fire. He passed through one village which was
+occasionally shelled, but, while I was with the Signal Company, the
+postman and the shells never arrived at the village at the same time.
+There was far more danger from lorries and motor ambulances than from
+shells.
+
+As for the long line of "postmen" that stretched back into the dim
+interior of France--it was rarely that they even heard the guns. When
+they did hear them, they would, I am afraid, pluck a racing helmet from
+their pockets, draw the ear-flaps well down over their ears, bend down
+over their racing handle-bars, and sprint for dear life. Returning
+safely to Abbeville, they would write hair-raising accounts of the
+dangers they had passed through to the motor-cycling papers. It is only
+right that I should here once and for all confess--there is no finer
+teller of tall stories than the motor-cyclist despatch rider....
+
+From December to February the only time I was under shell fire was late
+in December, when the Grand Attack was in full train. A certain brigade
+headquarters had taken refuge inconsiderately in advanced dug-outs. As I
+passed along the road to them some shrapnel was bursting a quarter of a
+mile away. So long was it since I had been under fire that the noise of
+our own guns disturbed me. In the spring, after I had left the Signal
+Company, the roads were not so healthy. George experienced the delights
+of a broken chain on a road upon which the Germans were registering
+accurately with shrapnel. Church, a fine fellow, and quite the most
+promising of our recruits, was killed in his billet by a shell when
+attached to a brigade.
+
+Taking the post rarely meant just a pleasant spin, because it rained in
+Flanders from September to January.
+
+One day I started out from D.H.Q. at 3.30 P.M. with the afternoon post,
+and reached the First Brigade well up to time. Then it began to rain, at
+first slightly, and then very heavily indeed, with a bagful of wind. On
+a particularly open stretch of road--the rain was stinging sharply--the
+engine stopped. With a heroic effort I tugged the bicycle through some
+mud to the side of a shed, in the hope that when the wind changed--it
+did not--I might be under cover. I could not see. I could not grip--and
+of course I could not find out what the matter was.
+
+After I had been working for about half an hour the two artillery
+motor-cyclists came along. I stopped them to give me a hand and to do as
+much work as I could possibly avoid doing myself while preserving an
+appearance of omniscience.
+
+We worked for an hour or more. It was now so dark that I could not
+distinguish one motor-cyclist from another. The rain rained faster than
+it had ever rained before, and the gale was so violent that we could
+scarcely keep our feet. Finally, we diagnosed a complaint that could not
+be cured by the roadside. So we stopped working, to curse and admire
+the German rockets.
+
+There was an estaminet close by. It had appeared shut, but when we began
+to curse a light shone in one of the windows. So I went in and settled
+to take one of the artillery motor-cycles and deliver the rest of my
+quite unimportant despatches. It would not start. We worked for twenty
+minutes in the rain vainly, then a motor-cyclist turned up from the
+nearest brigade to see what had become of me,--the progress of the post
+is checked over the wire. We arranged matters--but then neither his
+motor-cycle nor the motor-cycle of the second artillery motor-cyclist
+would start. It was laughable. Eventually we got the brigade despatch
+rider started with my report.
+
+A fifth motor-cyclist, who discreetly did not stop his engine, took my
+despatches back to "the Div." The second artillery motor-cycle we
+started after quarter of an hour's prodigious labour. The first and mine
+were still obstinate, so he and I retired to the inn, drank brandy and
+hot water, and conversed amiably with madame.
+
+Madame, who together with innumerable old men and children inhabited the
+inn, was young and pretty and intelligent--black hair, sallow and
+symmetrical face, expressive mouth, slim and graceful limbs. Talking
+the language, we endeavoured to make our forced company pleasant. That
+other despatch rider, still steaming from the stove, sat beside a
+charming Flemish woman, and endeavoured, amid shrieks of laughter, to
+translate the jokes in an old number of 'London Opinion.'
+
+A Welsh lad came in--a perfect Celt of nineteen, dark and lithe, with a
+momentary smile and a wild desire to see India. Then some Cheshires
+arrived. They were soaked and very weary. One old reservist staggered to
+a chair. We gave him some brandy and hot water. He chattered
+unintelligibly for a moment about his wife and children. He began to
+doze, so his companion took him out, and they tottered along after their
+company.
+
+A dog of no possible breed belonged to the estaminet. Madame called him
+"Automobile Anglais," because he was always rushing about for no
+conceivable reason.
+
+We were sorry when at 9.50 the lorry came for the bicycles. Our second
+driver was an ex-London cabby, with a crude wit expressed in impossible
+French that our hostess delightfully parried. On the way back he told me
+how he had given up the three taxis he had owned to do "his bit," how
+the other men had laughed at him because he was so old, how he had met
+a prisoner who used to whistle for the taxis in Russell Square. We
+talked also of the men in the trenches, of fright, and of the end of the
+war. We reached D.H.Q. about 10.30, and after a large bowl of porridge I
+turned in.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] The soldier's contemptuous expression for the inhabitants of the
+civilian world.
+
+[26] I retired with some haste from Flanders the night after the Germans
+first began to use gas. Militant chemistry may have altered the British
+soldier's convictions.
+
+[27] I have left out the usual monotonous epithet. Any soldier can
+supply it.
+
+[28] To these may now be added--St Eloi, Hill 60, the Second Battle of
+Ypres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+BEHIND THE LINES.
+
+
+I had intended to write down a full description of the country
+immediately behind our present line. The Skipper, for fear we should
+become stale, allowed us plenty of leave. We would make little
+expeditions to Bethune for the baths, spend an afternoon riding round
+Armentieres, or run over to Poperinghe for a chop. We even arranged for
+a visit to the Belgian lines, but that excursion was forbidden by a new
+order. Right through the winter we had "unrivalled opportunities"--as
+the journalists would say--of becoming intimate with that strip of
+Flanders which extends from Ypres to Bethune. Whether I can or may
+describe it is a matter for care. A too affectionate description of the
+neighbourhood of Wulverghem, for instance, would be unwise. But I see no
+reason why I should not state as a fact that a most excellent dry
+Martini could be obtained in Ypres up to the evening of April 22.
+
+Wretched Ypres has been badly over-written. Before the war it was a
+pleasant city, little visited by travellers because it lay on a badly
+served branch line. The inhabitants tell me it was never much troubled
+with tourists. One burgher explained the situation to me with a comical
+mixture of sentiment and reason.
+
+"You see, sir, that our Cathedral is shattered and the Cloth Hall a
+ruin. May those devils, the dirty Germans, roast in Hell! But after the
+war we shall be the richest city in Belgium. All England will flock to
+Ypres. Is it not a monstrous cemetery? Are there not woods and villages
+and farms at which the brave English have fought like lions to earn for
+themselves eternal fame, and for the city an added glory? The good God
+gives His compensations after great wars. There will be many to buy our
+lace and fill our restaurants."
+
+Mr John Buchan and Mr Valentine Williams and others have "written up"
+Ypres. The exact state of the Cloth Hall at any given moment is the
+object of solicitude. The shattered Belgian homes have been described
+over and over again. The important things about Ypres have been left
+unsaid.
+
+Near the station there was a man who really could mix cocktails. He was
+no blundering amateur, but an expert with the subtlest touch. And in the
+Rue de Lille a fashionable dressmaker turned her _atelier_ into a
+tea-room. She used to provide coffee or chocolate, or even tea, and the
+most delicious little cakes. Of an afternoon you would sit on
+comfortable chairs at a neat table covered with a fair cloth and talk to
+your hostess. A few hats daintily remained on stands, but, as she said,
+they were last year's hats, unworthy of our notice.
+
+A pleasant afternoon could be spent on the old ramparts. We were there,
+as a matter of fact, to do a little building-up and clearing-away when
+the German itch for destruction proved too strong for their more
+gentlemanly feelings. We lay on the grass in the sun and smoked our
+pipes, looking across the placid moat to Zillebeke Vyver, Verbranden
+Molen, and the slight curve of Hill 60. The landscape was full of
+interest. Here was shrapnel bursting over entirely empty fields. There
+was a sapper repairing a line. The Germans were shelling the town, and
+it was a matter of skill to decide when the lumbersome old shell was
+heard exactly where it would fall. Then we would walk back into the town
+for tea and look in at that particularly enterprising grocer's in the
+Square to see his latest novelties in tinned goods.
+
+From Ypres the best road in Flanders runs by Vlamertinghe to Poperinghe.
+It is a good macadam road, made, doubtless by perfidious Albion's money,
+just before the war.
+
+Poperinghe has been an age-long rival of Ypres. Even to-day its
+inhabitants delight to tell you the old municipal scandals of the larger
+town, and the burghers of Ypres, if they see a citizen of Poperinghe in
+their streets, believe he has come to gloat over their misfortunes.
+Ypres is an Edinburgh and Poperinghe a Glasgow. Ypres was
+self-consciously "old world" and loved its buildings. Poperinghe is
+modern, and perpetrated a few years ago the most terrible of town halls.
+There are no cocktails in Poperinghe, but there is good whisky and most
+excellent beer.
+
+I shall never forget my feelings when one morning in a certain
+wine-merchant's cellar I saw several eighteen-gallon casks of Bass's
+Pale Ale. I left Poperinghe in a motor-ambulance, and the Germans
+shelled it next day, but my latest advices state that the ale is still
+intact.
+
+Across the road from the wine-merchant's is a delectable tea-shop. There
+is a tea-shop at Bailleul, the "Allies Tea-Rooms." It was started early
+in March. It is full of bad blue china and inordinately expensive. Of
+the tea-shop at Poperinghe I cannot speak too highly. There is a vast
+variety of the most delicious cakes. The proprietress is pleasant and
+her maids are obliging. It is also cheap. I have only one fault to find
+with it--the room is small. Infantry officers walk miles into Poperinghe
+for their tea and then find the room crowded with those young subalterns
+who supply us with our bully. They bring in bulldogs and stay a long
+time.
+
+Dickebusch used to be a favourite Sunday afternoon's ride for the
+Poperinghe wheelers. They would have tea at the restaurant on the north
+of Dickebusch Vyver, and afterwards go for a row in the little
+flat-bottomed boats, accompanied, no doubt, by some nice dark Flemish
+girls. The village, never very pleasant, is now the worse for wear. I
+remember it with no kindly feelings, because, having spent a night there
+with the French, I left them in the morning too early to obtain a
+satisfactory meal, and arrived at Headquarters too late for any
+breakfast.
+
+Not far from Dickebusch is the Desolate Chateau. Before the war it was a
+handsome place, built by a rich coal-merchant from Lille. I visited it
+on a sunny morning. At the southern gate there was a little black and
+shapeless heap fluttering a rag in the wind. I saluted and passed on,
+sick at heart. The grounds were pitted with shell-holes: the
+cucumber-frames were shattered. Just behind the chateau was a wee
+village of dug-outs. Now they are slowly falling in. And the chateau
+itself?
+
+It had been so proud of its finery, its pseudo-Greek columns, and its
+rich furnishings. Battered and confused--there is not a room of it which
+is not open to the wind from the sea. The pictures lie prostrate on the
+floor before their ravisher. The curtains are torn and faded. The papers
+of its master are scattered over the carpet and on the rifled desk. In
+the bedroom of its mistress her linen has been thrown about wildly; yet
+her two silver brushes still lie on the dressing-table. Even the
+children's room had been pillaged, and the books, torn and defaced, lay
+in a rough heap.
+
+All was still. At the foot of the garden there was a little village half
+hidden by trees. Not a sound came from it. Away on the ridge miserable
+Wytschaete stood hard against the sky, a mass of trembling ruins. Then
+two soldiers came, and finding a boat rowed noisily round the tiny lake,
+and the shells murmured harshly as they flew across to Ypres. Some ruins
+are dead stones, but the broken houses of Flanders are pitifully
+alive--like the wounded men who lie between the trenches and cannot be
+saved....
+
+Half a mile south from Dickebusch are cross-roads, and the sign-post
+tells you that the road to the left is the road to Wytschaete--but
+Wytschaete faces Kemmel and Messines faces Wulverghem.
+
+I was once walking over the hills above Witzenhausen,--the cherries by
+the roadside were wonderful that year,--and coming into a valley we
+asked a man how we might best strike a path into the next valley over
+the shoulder of the hill. He said he did not know, because he had never
+been over the hill. The people of the next valley were strangers to him.
+When first I came to a sign-post that told me how to get to a village I
+could not reach with my life, I thought of those hills above
+Witzenhausen. From Wulverghem to Messines is exactly two kilometres. It
+is ludicrous.
+
+Again, one afternoon I was riding over the pass between Mont Noir and
+Mont Vidaigne. I looked to the east and saw in the distance the smoke of
+a train, just as from Harrow you might see the Scottish Express on the
+North-Western main line. For a moment I did not realise that the train
+was German, that the purpose of its journey was to kill me and my
+fellow-men. But it is too easy to sentimentalise, to labour the stark
+fact that war is a grotesque, irrational absurdity....
+
+Following the main road south from Dickebusch you cross the frontier and
+come to Bailleul, a town of which we were heartily sick before the
+winter was far gone. In peace it would be once seen and never
+remembered. It has no character, though I suppose the "Faucon" is as
+well known to Englishmen now as any hotel in Europe. There are better
+shops in Bethune and better cafes in Poperinghe. Of the "Allies
+Tea-Rooms" I have already written.
+
+Bailleul is famous for one thing alone--its baths. Just outside the town
+is a large and modern asylum that contains a good plunge-bath for the
+men and gorgeous hot baths for officers. There are none better behind
+the line. Tuesdays and Fridays were days of undiluted joy.
+
+Armentieres is sprawling and ugly and full of dirt--a correct and
+middle-class town that reminded me of Bristol. In front of it are those
+trenches, of which many tales wandered up and down the line. Here the
+Christmas truce is said to have been prolonged for three weeks or more.
+Here the men are supposed to prefer their comfortable trenches to their
+billets, though when they "come out" they are cheered by the Follies and
+the Fancies. On this section of the line is the notorious Plugstreet
+Wood, that show-place to which all distinguished but valuable visitors
+are taken. Other corps have sighed for the gentle delights of this
+section of the line....
+
+South-west from Armentieres the country is as level as it can be. It is
+indeed possible to ride from Ypres to Bethune without meeting any hill
+except the slight ascent from La Clytte. Steenwerck, Erquinghem, Croix
+du Bac, and, farther west, Merris and Vieux Berquin, have no virtue
+whatsoever. There is little country flatter and uglier than the country
+between Bailleul and Bethune.
+
+One morning Huggie, Cecil, and I obtained leave to visit Bethune and the
+La Bassee district. It was in the middle of January, three months after
+we had left Beuvry. We tore into Bailleul and bumped along the first
+mile of the Armentieres road. That mile is without any doubt the most
+excruciatingly painful _pave_ in the world. We crossed the railway and
+raced south. The roads were good and there was little traffic, but the
+sudden apparition of a motor-lorry round a sharp corner sent that other
+despatch rider into the ditch. Estaires, as always, produced much
+grease. It began to rain, but we held on by La Gorgue and Lestrem,
+halting only once for the necessary cafe-cognac.
+
+We were stopped for our passes at the bridge into Bethune by a private
+of the London Scottish. I rejoiced exceedingly, and finding Alec, took
+him off to a bath and then to the restaurant where I had breakfasted
+when first we came to Bethune. The meal was as good as it had been three
+months before, and the flapper as charming.[29] After lunch we had our
+hair cut. Then Cecil took us to the little blue-and-white cafe for tea.
+She did play the piano, but two subalterns of the less combatant type
+came in and put us to flight. A corporal is sometimes at such a
+disadvantage.
+
+We rode along the canal bank to Beuvry Station, and found that our
+filthy old quarters had been cleaned up and turned into an Indian
+dressing-station. We went on past the cross-roads at Gorre, where an
+Indian battalion was waiting miserably under the dripping trees. The sun
+was just setting behind some grey clouds. The fields were flooded with
+ochreous water. Since last I had been along the road the country had
+been "searched" too thoroughly. One wall of 1910 farm remained. Chickens
+pecked feebly among the rest of it.
+
+Coming into Festubert I felt that something was wrong. The village had
+been damnably shelled--that I had expected--and there was not a soul to
+be seen. I thought of the father and mother and daughter who, returning
+to their home while we were there in October, had wept because a fuse
+had gone through the door and the fireplace and all their glass had been
+broken. Their house was now a heap of nothing in particular. The mirror
+I had used lay broken on the top of about quarter of a wall. Still
+something was wrong, and Huggie, who had been smiling at my puzzled
+face, said gently in an off-hand way--
+
+"Seen the church?"
+
+That was it! The church had simply disappeared. In the old days riding
+up from Gorre the fine tower of the church rose above the houses at the
+end of the street. The tower had been shelled and had fallen crashing
+through the roof.
+
+We met a sapper coming out of a cottage. He was rather amused at our
+sentimental journey, and warned us that the trenches were considerably
+nearer the village than they had been in our time. We determined to push
+on as it was now dusk, but my engine jibbed, and we worked on it in the
+gloom among the dark and broken houses. The men in the trenches roused
+themselves to a sleepless night, and intermittent rifle-shots rang out
+in the damp air.
+
+We rode north to the Estaminet de l'Epinette, passing a road which
+forking to the right led to a German barricade. The estaminet still
+lived, but farther down the road the old house which had sheltered a
+field ambulance was a pile of rubbish. On we rode by La Couture to
+Estaires, where we dined, and so to St Jans Cappel....
+
+Do you know what the Line means? When first we came to Landrecies the
+thought of the Frontier as something strong and stark had thrilled us
+again and again, but the Frontier was feeble and is nothing. A man of
+Poperinghe told me his brother was professor, his son was serving, his
+wife and children were "over there." He pointed to the German lines. Of
+his wife and children he has heard nothing for four months. Some of us
+are fighting to free "German" Flanders, the country where life is dark
+and bitter. Those behind our line, however confident they may be, live
+in fear, for if the line were to retire a little some of them would be
+cast into the bitter country. A day will come "when the whole line will
+advance," and the welcome we shall receive then from those who have come
+out of servitude!... There are men and women in France who live only for
+that day, just as there are those in this country who would welcome the
+day of death, so that they might see again those they love....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You may have gathered from my former letters that no friction took
+place between the professional and amateur soldiers of the Signal
+Company. I have tried all through my letters to give you a very truthful
+idea of our life, and my account would not be complete without some
+description of the Signal Company and its domestic affairs.
+
+Think for a moment of what happened at the beginning of August. More
+than a dozen 'Varsity men were thrown like Daniels into a den of
+mercenaries. We were awkwardly privileged persons--full corporals with a
+few days' service. Motor-cycling gave superlative opportunities of
+freedom. Our duties were "flashy," and brought us into familiar contact
+with officers of rank. We were highly paid, and thought to have much
+money of our own. In short, we who were soldiers of no standing
+possessed the privileges that a professional soldier could win only
+after many years' hard work.
+
+Again, it did not help matters that our Corps was a Corps of intelligent
+experts who looked down on the ordinary "Tommy," that our Company had
+deservedly the reputation of being one of the best Signal Companies in
+the Army--a reputation which has been enhanced and duly rewarded in the
+present war. These motor-cyclists were not only experimental
+interlopers. They might even "let down" the Company.
+
+We expected jealousy and unpleasantness, which we hoped to overcome by
+hard work. We found a tactful kindness that was always smoothing the
+rough way, helping us amusedly, and giving us more than our due, and a
+thorough respect where respect was deserved. It was astonishing, but
+then we did not know the professional soldier. During the winter there
+was a trifle of friction over cooking, the work of the Signal Office,
+and the use and abuse of motor-cycles. It would have been a
+poor-spirited company if there had been none. But the friction was
+transitory, and left no acid feeling.
+
+I should like to pay my compliments to a certain commanding officer, but
+six months' work under him has convinced me that he does not like
+compliments. Still, there remains that dinner at the end of the war, and
+then...!
+
+The Sergeant-Major frightened us badly at first. He looked so much like
+a Sergeant-Major, and a Sergeant-Major is more to be feared than the
+C.O., or the General, or the A.P.M., or anybody else in this
+disciplinary world. He can make life Hell or Heaven or a judicious
+compromise. Our Sergeant-Major believed in the judicious compromise with
+a tendency towards Heaven. When any question arose between professional
+and amateur, he dealt with it impartially. At other times he was
+inclined to let us work out our own salvation. I have always had a
+mighty respect for the Sergeant-Major, but have never dared tell him so.
+Perhaps he will read this.
+
+The "Quarter-Bloke"[30] was a jewel. He was suddenly called upon to keep
+us supplied with things of which he had never even heard the names. He
+rose to the occasion like a hero or Mr Selfridge's buyer. Never did he
+pass by an unconsidered trifle. One day a rumour went round that we
+might get side-cars. That was enough for the Quarter-Bloke. He picked up
+every large-sized tyre he thought might come in useful. The side-cars
+came. There was a rush for tyres. The Quarter-Bloke did not rush. He
+only smiled.
+
+His great triumph was the affair of the leather jackets. A maternal
+Government thought to send us out leather jackets. After tea the Q.-B.
+bustled in with them. We rode out with them the next morning. The 2nd
+Corps had not yet received theirs. We were the first motor-cyclists in
+our part of the world to appear in flaring chrome. The Q.-B. smiled
+again.
+
+I always think the Quarter-Bloke is wasted. He ought to be put in charge
+of the Looting Department of a large invading army. Do not
+misunderstand me. The Q.-B. never "looted." He never stepped a
+hair's-breadth outside those regulations that hedge round the
+Quartermaster. He was just a man with a prophetic instinct, who, while
+others passed blindly by, picked up things because they might come in
+useful some day--and they always did. Finally, the Q.-B. was
+companionable. He could tell a good story, and make merry decorously, as
+befitted a Company Quartermaster-Sergeant.
+
+Of the other sergeants I will make no individual mention. We took some
+for better, and some for worse, but they were all good men, who knew
+their job.
+
+Then there was "Ginger," the cook. I dare not describe his personal
+appearance lest I should meet him again--and I want to--but it was
+remarkable. So was his language. One of us had a fair gift that way, and
+duels were frequent, but "Ginger" always had the last word. He would
+keep in reserve a monstrously crude sulphurous phrase with a sting of
+humour in its tail, and, when our fellow had concluded triumphantly with
+an exotic reference to Ginger's hereditary characteristics, Ginger would
+hesitate a moment, as if thinking, and then out with _it_. Obviously
+there was no more to be said.
+
+I have ever so much more to tell about the Signal Company in detail and
+dialogue. Perhaps some day I shall have the courage to say it, but I
+shall be careful to hide about whom I am writing....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The "commission fever," which we had caught on the Aisne and, more
+strongly, at Beuvry, swept over us late in January. Moulders, who had
+lost his own company and joined on to us during the Retreat, had retired
+into the quietude of the A.S.C. Cecil was selected to go home and train
+the despatch riders of the New Armies.
+
+There were points in being "an officer and a gentleman." Dirt and
+discomfort were all very well when there was plenty of work to do, and
+we all decided that every officer should have been in the ranks, but
+despatch-riding had lost its savour. We had become postmen. Thoughts of
+the days when we had dashed round picking-up brigades, had put
+battalions on the right road, and generally made ourselves conspicuous,
+if not useful, discontented us. So we talked it over.
+
+Directing the operations of a very large gun seemed a good job. There
+would not be much moving to do, because monster guns were notoriously
+immobile. Hours are regular; the food is good, and can generally be
+eaten in comparative safety. If the gun had a very long range it would
+be quite difficult to hit. Unfortunately gunnery is a very technical
+job, and requires some acquaintance with Algebra. So we gave up the
+idea.
+
+We did not dote on the cavalry, for many reasons. First, when cavalry is
+not in action it does nothing but clean its stables and exercise its
+horses. Second, if ever we broke through the German lines the cavalry
+would probably go ahead of anybody else. Third, we could not ride very
+well, and the thought of falling off in front of our men when they were
+charging daunted us.
+
+The sappers required brains, and we had too great an admiration for the
+infantry to attempt commanding them. Besides, they walked and lived in
+trenches.
+
+Two of us struck upon a corps which combined the advantages of every
+branch of the service. We drew up a list of each other's qualifications
+to throw a sop to modesty, sent in our applications, and waited. At the
+same time we adopted a slight tone of hauteur towards those who were not
+potential officers.
+
+One night after tea "Ginger" brought in the orders. I had become a
+gentleman, and, saying good-bye, I walked down into the village and
+reported myself to the officer commanding the Divisional Cyclists. I was
+no longer a despatch rider but a very junior subaltern.
+
+I had worked with the others for nearly seven months--with Huggie, who
+liked to be frightened; with George the arch scrounger; with Spuggy, who
+could sing the rarest songs; with Sadders, who is as brave as any man
+alive; with N'Soon, the dashing, of the tender skin; with Fat Boy, who
+loves "sustaining" food and dislikes frost; with Grimers and Cecil, best
+of artificers; with Potters and Orr and Moulders and the Flapper.
+
+I cannot pay them a more sufficient tribute than the tribute of the
+Commander-in-Chief:--
+
+"Carrying despatches and messages at all hours of the day and night, in
+every kind of weather, and often traversing bad roads blocked with
+transport, they have been conspicuously successful in maintaining an
+extraordinary degree of efficiency in the service of communications....
+No amount of difficulty or danger has ever checked the energy and ardour
+which has distinguished their corps throughout the operations."
+
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] I cannot remember the name of the restaurant. Go to the north-east
+corner of the Square and turn down a lane to your right. It is the
+fourth or fifth house on your right. In Bethune there is also, of
+course, the big hotel where generals lunch. If you find the company of
+generals a little trying go to the flapper's restaurant.
+
+[30] Company Quartermaster-Sergeant, now a Sergeant-Major.
+
+[Transcriber's Notes:
+
+page 56: Comma changed to period in "La Cateau. A good many"
+
+page 71: "off" changed to "of". "a great meal of lunch"
+
+page 109: "reopend" to "reopened". "reopened with cheers."
+
+page 166: changed "BASSEE" to "BASSEE"
+
+page 207: "that" changed to "than". "worse of surface than the main"
+
+page 213: word "for" inserted into text. "go for walks"
+
+page 246: period added after "Port."
+
+page 261: "distinguised" changed to "distinguished". "to which all
+           distinguished"]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures of a Despatch Rider, by W. H. L. Watson
+
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