On the further side of the town the Brigade Transport, with steaming cookers, was massed ready to give the troops a midday meal. This was an innovation greatly appreciated. Such a thing as a meal in the middle of the day had not occurred since the days of Iron.



CHAPTER XII

VILLIERS-COTTERETS

Twenty minutes later the Column was again on the move, but this time not for long. Having reached the edge of another forest, a fresh halt was made while the Transport was hauled past them into the wood. The Transport, known technically as "second line" of a Brigade, is a very large, cumbersome, and slow-moving affair, and it must be protected at all costs, for without it the Brigade is lost.

A swift deployment was then made, and the edge of the wood was held astride of the road. After everything had been arranged, there was a wait of thirty to forty minutes. Nothing could be seen, as the position was on the "reverse slope" of the incline, but the field of fire was absolutely clear for at least two hundred yards in front. It is the most trying time of all, this waiting for the approach of an enemy you cannot see, and it tells on the most phlegmatic disposition. The men occupy the heavy moments by working the bolts of their rifles, and seeing that they work easily. The success or failure of the defence depends mainly on the speed and accuracy with which the defenders "get their rounds off." The Officers pace about, making sure of "keeping touch" with the units on their flank, discovering the best way to retire, and so on. There is at such moments an odd desire to give way to the temptation of saying to oneself, "Where shall I be in an hour's time?" One gazes with a subtle feeling of affection on one's limbs, and wonders, "Where shall I get it?" Subconsciously one is amused and a little ashamed of such concessions to sentimentality. The best thing to do under the circumstances is to go and check the range-finders' figures, or prepare the headlines of a message or two.

* * * * *

A Taube, like some huge insect with a buzz of whirring wings, flew overhead, dropping multi-coloured stars from its tail. Then our guns "opened the ball."

There was something blatant and repulsive about that first burst of sound. The ferns of the forest shivered, as if awakened from a sunny dream to face terrible calamities. The trees seemed to shake with a delicate fear of what was in store for them. The enemy's fire burst upon them with a startling intensity.

There was no point in holding the advanced edge of the wood under such a bombardment until the actual appearance of the enemy infantry made it necessary, so the whole line was retired some fifty yards into the wood. By this manoeuvre the Colonel lost no advantage, and must have saved many lives.

Although artillery fire had been a pretty frequent occurrence, this was the heaviest the men had yet experienced. The noise was ear-splitting; the explosions filled the quivering air; the ground seemed to shudder beneath them. Branches fell crashing to the ground; it seemed as if a god was flogging the tree-tops with a huge scourge. The din was awful, petrifying, numbing.

And in the middle of all this inferno, with the sight of men with ashen faces limping, crawling, or being dragged to the rear, with the leaves on the ground smoking from the hot, jagged shell-casings buried among them, the Subaltern suddenly discovered that he was not afraid. The discovery struck him as curious. He argued with himself that he had every right to feel afraid, that he ought to feel "queer." He said to himself, "Here you are, as nervous and temperamental a youth as ever stepped, with a mental laziness that amounts to moral cowardice, in the deuce of a hole that I don't expect you'll ever get out of. You ought to be in an awful state. Your cheeks ought to be white, and there they are looking like two raw beef-steaks. Your tongue ought to cleave to the roof of your mouth; and it isn't. You ought to feel pains in the pit of your stomach, and you're not. Devil a bit! You know, you're missing all the sensations that the writers told you about. You're not playing the game. Come, buck up, fall down and grovel on the ground!" But he did not. He did not want to. He felt absolutely normal.

A man sheltering behind the same tree suddenly spun round, and, grasping his left arm, fell with a thud to the ground. He reeled over, with knees raised and rounded back, and staggered immediately to his feet. "Oh, my arm, my arm!" he moaned plaintively, and turned away towards the rear, whimpering a little as he went, and tenderly holding the wet, dark-stained sleeve as he went. The Subaltern felt that he ought to have winced with horror at the mutilation of the poor stricken thing, but beyond a slight sinking sensation between the lungs and the stomach, the incident left him with no emotion. He picked up the man's rifle, leant it against the tree, and continued to scan the skyline with his glasses, feeling all the while a bit of a brute.

At the same time he experienced a sensation of pleasure at the immunity from mental sufferings that are generally supposed to afflict men under these conditions. He felt like a man who unexpectedly finds a five-pound note, the very existence of which he had forgotten, hidden away in some unusual pocket. It was something of the same sensation that he used to have at school, when by chance he saw other boys working at impositions which he had himself escaped.

The time came when it was no longer expedient to remain in the wood, so they advanced, flitting from tree to tree, back to the edge of the forest. The view was rather restricted from where the Subaltern was, apparently on the right of where the full force of the attack was breaking.

"Plop-plop-plop," the machine-gun spluttered with an amazing air of detached insistence. The machine-guns strike in battle quite a note of their own. Shells, screeching and roaring in their frenzy, give an impression of passion, of untameable wrath. Rifle-fire is as inconstant in volume as piano music; there is something of human effort to be heard in the "tap ... tap ... tap ... tap-tap-trrrrapp" of its crescendos and diminuendoes. But the machine-gun is different from these. It strikes a higher note, and can be heard above the roar of the bursting shells. It is mechanical, there is nothing about it of human passion; it is a machine, and a most deadly one at that.

The Colonel dashed out into the open and dragged a wounded gunner into the comparative shelter of the wood. Many more acts scarcely less heroic were performed.

At last the moment came to retire. The guns had already rattled through the line, and the companies drew away from the edge of the wood, re-formed with great speed, and were soon marching once more in column of route along the road.

The Subaltern felt exhausted in a way that he had never felt so badly before. The withdrawal from the actual scene of battle seemed to leave a gulf in his inside that positively yawned. It was not only the apparent uselessness of trying to stem the German tide that depressed him. There was something more than that. He felt like a man who wakes after a heavy, drug-induced slumber. The sudden cessation of the intense excitement of battles leaves the brain empty and weary. At such moments the hopelessness of the whole thing appalled and depressed him. The uncertainty of the future hurt him. Nor was he alone in this state of mind. Not a voice was raised to break the throbbing monotony of the march. Heads were bent low.

On they went. Night came down upon them and seemed to crush the spirit out of them. As they emerged from the wood, the moon rose and flooded the broad plain with weird, phosphorescent light. They struggled on, swaying with sleep, past the ghostly outlines of poplars and hayricks, past quiet, deserted cottages and empty stables. There was something almost unearthly about that march in the moonlight. The accumulated fatigue of a long and hot day, the want of food and the repressing influence of a summer night, all these things joined in producing a state of mental listlessness that destroyed the impression of reality which things have in the daytime. They were drifting down a slow-moving stream; the scenery glided by, but the sensation was by no means pleasant. The brain was constantly at war with the lazy feet, striving to keep them from stumbling and the eyelids from closing. Sound was peculiarly muffled, as if darkness repressed and shut it in. The brain was not commanding the limbs with the instantaneous co-ordination of the daytime. The sensation that this produced—it is very difficult to give any definite idea of it—was an impression of physical and mental incompetence and uncertainty. And all the time every ounce of the body was crying out to the mind to let it lie down and rest.

That night many men were lost.

* * * * *

It was not until ten o'clock that they arrived at a village where they found the "cookers" and regimental transport. The Subaltern could not help admiring the skill which was constantly being shown by the Staff not only in the strategical dispositions of the retreat, but in comparatively minute details such as this. The Brigade transport had been guided and collected to a spot where it could safely be of service to the battalions. Moreover, when the men arrived they found tea waiting for them already brewed. Apparently the hour of the men's arrival had been timed to such a nicety that the meal was just ready for them. Assuming the truth of Napoleon's maxim about an army marching on its belly, one can easily see from these pages that if Staff work had in any way failed, or if the Army Service Corps had broken down, the Great Retreat would have ended in disaster. It was these faultless arrangements of the Army Service Corps that served to keep the sorely tried army at any rate on its legs.

A fire had been lighted, and, grateful for its warmth, the five Officers of the Company were soon clustering round it, sipping out of their mess tins filled with strong, sweet tea, without milk but very strongly flavoured with rum. Soon the worries and painful memories of the day were dispelled. A feeling almost of contentment stole over them. There is something so particularly adventurous and at the same time soothing about a camp fire. They had all read books at school full of camp fires and fighting and prairies, and they had all more or less envied such a life. Here it was. But the adventure part of it was so minute, and the drudgery and nerve strain so great that the most adventurous soul among them had long since admitted that "if this was Active Service, it was not the life for him!"



CHAPTER XIII

HEAT AND DUST

The Subaltern did not get to sleep until twelve, and the Regiment made another start as early as half-past two. It seemed to him that when necessity drives there is no limit to the nerve force that we have in us! They marched some miles in a westerly direction before they rejoined the main road southwards.

To describe in detail the sufferings of that day would be to repeat almost word for word some of the preceding paragraphs. It was just as hot as usual, just as dusty as usual. An order had come from somewhere that there was to be no looting. Men were to be forbidden to snatch an apple from a fruit-strewn orchard, or an egg from a deserted barn! The owners had already fled from their homes, and here Mr. Thomas Atkins was solemnly asked to go hungry and thirsty and to relieve the enemy of one of his greatest difficulties—feeding himself. The Platoon having halted for the usual hourly halt outside an orchard, some of the men broke into it and began to throw apples over the hedge to the others. Seeing the Colonel approaching, the Subaltern realised that something must be done instantly to avert disaster. "What the deuce are you men doing? Come out of it!" he cried. The men came, looking very dejected. The Colonel, pacified, passed by. A second later, the glad work of refreshing the troops was being carried on by a fresh couple of men.

It must have been a very similar situation that gave birth to a story that has already become famous. A Tommy was caught by a "brass hat" in the very act of strangling a chicken. Tommy looked up. Was he abashed? Not a bit of it! He did what Mr. Thomas Atkins generally does in a tight corner. He kept his head: he rose magnificently to the occasion. He did not loose the chicken and endeavour to stammer an apology. On the contrary, he continued to strangle it. He took no notice of the "brass hat." As he gave a final twist to the bird's throat he said menacingly, "So you'd try to bite me, would you, you little brute!"

Towards the end of the afternoon the men were so obviously exhausted, and the number forced to fall out was so great, that a halt had to be ordered in spite of previous plans. The men threw themselves utterly exhausted on the ground on their backs, and lay like so many corpses until the march was continued, in the cool of the evening.

The Subaltern, consulting a fresh map—for they had been walking across the ground covered by one map every day—learnt to his surprise that they were within a few miles of Paris. And so also, he thought, were the Germans! It rather looked as if they were heading straight towards the city, and that would mean a siege. It was no use worrying about things, but that depressing idea was in the minds of most of the Officers that evening. Not that the Subaltern cared much at the time—it would mean a stop to this everlasting marching, and perhaps the forts of Paris could stand it; anyhow the German Fleet had been rounded up. (That wicked rumour spread by the sensational section of the Press had not yet been denied.)

While he was thinking of these things, they were moving through a country far more thickly populated. Villages began to crowd upon each other's heels, and all the villages—cheering sight—were full of British soldiers settling down to their billets for the night. This was the first they had seen of any other Division except their own, and the sight rather dispelled the illusion that, for all these days, they had been alone and unaided in a land of "frightfulness."

More marching in the darkness!

At last, at about nine o'clock, they reached their billets, but the word scarcely conveys a correct impression of the palatial chateau in which they were quartered. There was considerable delay in settling the men (which must, of course, be done before an officer thinks of his own comfort) and in detailing the quarters. At length the officers of the company found themselves in a little bedroom overlooking a river which they supposed to be the Seine. The Captain, who had been sent on in front of the Battalion to allot billets, produced with pride some chocolate, sardines, and bottled mushrooms.

The Second Lieutenants went in search of the "Company Cookers" to "draw" their tea (in a washing jug), while the Senior Subaltern effected a felonious entry into the room allotted to the General, and purloined all the drinking glasses he could lay hands on, making his departure just as that worthy Officer was coming up the stairs.

The house was evidently of the "nouveau riche" type. If there was in it nothing that could actually offend the eye, there was certainly nothing to satisfy it. There was a profusion of gilt mirrors, and an aching lack of pictures: the lighting was too new and glaring: the upholstery too flimsy. But there were baths and soap! It was too late for the baths, but the soap quickly disappeared.

Just when they were settling themselves drowsily to enjoy a real sleep, free from the fear of a morning attack, protected from the damp of dawn, and with quilts of down to cover them, who should come in but the Colonel!



CHAPTER XIV

THE OCCUPATION OF VILLIERS

"I'm sorry," he said, "but we've got to parade at two in the morning."

As soon as the door had closed behind him a perfect volley of abuse was heard. They could not dismiss from their minds the thought that all this sort of thing was unnecessary. And this was very natural, as no one had had sufficient courage to tell the regimental officer how serious the position was.

Even two hours' sleep, however, is better than none.

As soon as it became light the Subaltern saw that they were counter-marching along the same road on which they had travelled the previous night. What did this mean? Was a stand going to be made at last? Apparently not, for the resting-place of last afternoon was passed, and they continued to move eastwards. On consulting the map, he judged that they were marching on Meaux on the Aisne. He had often read of Meaux; was it not the Bishopric of Bossuet, the stately orator of Louis XIV? The interest he felt in the question helped to take the weight from his weary limbs.

At last they crossed the bridge. Sappers had been at work on it for some time, and the preparations to blow it up after they had passed were almost complete. The first sight of interest was the railway station, which was filled with what appeared to the Subaltern to be double-decked trains. Evidently a French army had detrained here.

The Column swung suddenly round a corner and they were almost staggered with the sight of the cathedral towering above them. To an eye used exclusively to the sight of the dour British edifice, there is something very fascinating about a foreign cathedral such as this. There is something more daring about the style of architecture, something more flamboyant, and yet more solid. The cathedral seemed vaguely indicative of the past grandeur of the Catholic Church. Bathed in the early morning sunlight it appeared to exult over the mean smallness of the houses that clustered at its feet.

Beyond the cathedral there is nothing at all extraordinary about Meaux. Many months afterwards one of his nurses told him in hospital that she had spent a long time in that very street. She had been with her father, the erstwhile Colonel of a line regiment, and a specialist in strategy, who for the pure love of the thing had laboriously gained permission to stay at Meaux and visit the famous battlefields of the Marne. She said they had been in the very room where General Joffre met Field-Marshal French, and had bought the very teapot in which their tea was brewed. She rather wondered how many more of these "very" teapots had been sold at fancy prices!

If Von Kluck made a forward thrust at Paris before his sidelong movement to the south-east, it was undoubtedly made at Meaux, which was the scene of some terrific combats.

Emerging from the town, the Column branched off in a south-easterly direction, and ascended the sides of a very steep plateau. Having reached the flat ground at the top, a midday halt was made in the pleasant grounds of yet another chateau.

This fresh move was discussed a great deal as the men lay at full length in the shade of the trees. Evidently there was to be no siege of Paris. They were marching directly away from Paris. What did it mean? They would get to Marseilles in a fortnight at this rate, and then the only thing to do would be to wire for the Fleet, and be taken safely home to their mammas!

The march went on through the stifling heat of the afternoon, and the Subaltern knew that he, and most of the men as well, were feeling about as bad as it is possible to feel without fainting. They marched through a very dense wood, and then out once more into the open. Even the longest day has its ending, and at last they found themselves halted in the usual lines of companies in the usual stubble field. A Taube flew overhead and all sorts of fire were concentrated on it.

It was already sunset. After the edge, as it were, had been taken off his exhaustion, the Subaltern extracted the before-mentioned piece of soap, and having, as usual, scraped it ready for action, washed his feet in a little stream. He did it under the impression that marching for that day was over. It is very comfortable to wash your hot, tired feet in a cool stream provided there is no necessity to put your boots on again. If something happens that forces you to do this, you are in for a hard and painful job. You would not believe it possible for feet to swell like yours have swelled. They do not seem like your own feet at all. They have expanded past recognition, and their tenderness surpasses thought.

The Subaltern was sitting by the stream edge gazing at the flush of golden light in the west, when he was awakened by the Major.

"Well, young feller, I've been looking everywhere for you. You've got to take your Platoon out to this village, Villiers, and occupy it till further orders—a sort of outpost position—you will be too far from the main body to establish touch; you have really just to block the roads, and if you are rushed, retire here the best way you can."

Having made sure of the position on the map, and asked for a couple of cyclists to accompany him, the Subaltern began to put on his boots. But they would not go on. It was like trying to get a baby's boots on to a giant's feet, and the more he tugged the more it hurt. The precious moments of daylight would soon be gone, and in the dark it would be ten times more difficult to find the village and block the roads. There was nothing for it but to cut the boots, so, unwrapping a fresh Gillette blade, he made a large V-shaped gash in the top part of each. It was annoying to have to spoil good boots, and in addition his feet would get wet far sooner than hitherto.

All superfluous articles of weight had long since been thrown away, and consequently he had nothing except matches with which to read his map in the dark and windy night. The difficulty was increased by the fact that the way lay across small tracks which were almost impossible to distinguish, but eventually, more by luck than judgment, he brought his men into a village. Was it Villiers? It took him some time to find out. There were plenty of people in the village street, but the Subaltern could not get coherent speech out of any one of them. Fear makes an uneducated Englishman suspicious, quickwitted and surly. It drives the French peasant absolutely mad. That village street seemed to have less sense, less fortitude, less coolness than a duck-run invaded by a terrier. The Subaltern caught a man by the arm and pushed him into a doorway.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est, le nom de cette village?" he said, with as much insistence and coolness as he could muster. The poor fellow broke into a tirade in which his desire to cut German throats, his peculiarly unfortunate circumstances, and his wish to get away literally tripped over each other.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est, le nom de cette village?" Followed a flood of words apparently about the village. A third time. "Qu'est-ce que c'est, le nom de cette village?" At last: "Ah, M'sieur, Villiers," with an air of surprise, as if he thought the Subaltern had known all the time, and had asked merely to start a polite conversation.

He let the man go, and turned his attention to the village street, which presented a terrible spectacle of panic. It was obviously unwise to allow this mob to leave the village, as they seemed to wish, and disperse, shouting and shrieking, over the countryside. Very possibly there were spies amongst them, who would bring the enemy about his ears in half an hour. More likely still, the whole excited crowd would wander straight into the arms of the Germans, and be treated with the well-known restraint of Huns towards the unprotected. So he hurriedly placed guards at the chief outlets of the village, with orders, in addition to the usual duties towards the enemy, to prevent the French from leaving it.

He then returned and tried to pacify the inhabitants. But his kind, soothing words in execrable French did not succeed in dispelling the panic and fear. He had to draw his sword (for the purpose of intimidation only) and literally to thrust them into houses. And he had to get three men with fixed bayonets to help him. He did his best to make it generally understood that any one who came out of his house and made a noise would be summarily disposed of. Any sounds of confusion would inevitably have drawn the fatal attentions of the enemy.

He then made a hurried survey of the roads leading out of the village, placed sentry groups at various places of advantage, and established the picket in the centre of the village in a large barn. This done, he sent the cyclist orderly to try and get into touch with the village on the right, which, he had been told, was to be occupied by a platoon from another regiment. The cyclist returned to report that the village was deserted by the French, and that there was no sign of the Blankshires. Evidently the O.C. Platoon had not been so fortunate in finding his way in the dark.

Dawn broke, and the expected order to retire did not come. The men slept on, intent on snatching as many moments of precious sleep as possible.

Still no orders came. At about eight o'clock the Subaltern finally awoke, and went the rounds of his groups. There was nothing to report, all had been quiet.

When he got back he found that the men had collected quite a good number of eggs from abandoned farmyards, had lighted a fire, and were busy making a sort of stew out of bully beef and swedes, and (he strongly suspected) a stolen chicken. As no orders came still, when he had finished his breakfast, he lay down in the shade of an apple tree and continued his sleep. He woke up later, at about midday, and ate the remainder of his rations, and then fell asleep once more.

* * * * *

He was awakened by the Major. It was about four o'clock, and the remainder of the Brigade was already on the move. The posts guarding the roads were hastily drawn in, and his Platoon took its place in the Company as the Battalion marched by.

He felt extremely pleased with the whole adventure of Villiers. It was the first and only time that he had had a completely detached command. He had felt the intoxication of undisputed authority; there had been a subtle pleasure in the thought that, as far as help or supervision were concerned, he was absolutely alone and that the responsibility for anything that might happen hung exclusively on his shoulders. The whole day had seemed like a Sunday to him—the first real Sunday since ages and ages ago he had left England, the easy land of peace.

There had been an air of quietness about that afternoon which is peculiar to Sundays, and he congratulated himself on the hours of sleep that he had been able to put in.

From his own point of view the whole war began to seem like an organised campaign of things in general to hustle him about in the heat until he died from want of sleep!



CHAPTER XV

THE LAST LAP

On every side the results of long marches were only too plain. Spirits were damped. There were fewer songs, and no jokes. The men were not by any means "downhearted," and would rather have died than admit that they were depressed, but the brightness was all rubbed off, and a moroseness, a dense, too-tired-to-worry taciturnity had set in that was almost bullet-proof.

Although the familiar sounds of artillery boomed away quite close to them they were not deployed, and when it was dark they bivouacked along the side of the road.

That night the Colonel addressed the Officers at some length. "The old man" always had an impressive way of speaking, and darkness and overwrought nerves doubtless magnified this. He spoke in subdued tones, as if awed by the intense silence of the night.

We all could tell where we were, he said—a few miles east, or even south-east by east of the French Capital. Our base, Havre, lay to the north-west, with the enemy in between. It was unnecessary to say anything further. The facts spoke for themselves. The British Army was up against it, none could tell what would happen next. One duty, however, was self-evident, and that was to watch the food-supply.

Things were going to be serious. Henceforward the army was to be on half rations, and he knew what that meant. He had been on "half rations" in the South African War, and he had seen a man give a franc for a dirty biscuit, and he knew what it was for soldiers on active service to be hungry. He ordered us, he begged and prayed them, to spare no energy in stopping waste of any description, and making their men realise the gravity of the position. No Officer was in future to draw any rations from the Company Cookers, and the Mess Sergeant had somehow procured and victualed a mess-cart.

That night must have been the most fateful night in the history of France. All the world was watching with bated breath, watching to see whether France was really a "back number"—whether the Prussian was truly the salt of the earth. If Paris fell, the French Armies in the field were cut off from their base; defeat was certain, and the national history of France, or, at any rate, the glory of it, would be stamped out for ever under the Kaiser's heel. The fate of France was in the balance, and also the fate of the Russian Armies. If Paris fell, Europe might be as much the slave of Prussia as it had been a century ago of Napoleon. As for England, if her Fleet could master the German, well and good. But, if not....

It looked as if the enemy were within an ace of victory. He had flooded Belgium and Luxembourg with his armies, and, at the first clash of arms, had hurled everything before him in a manner which to the civilian must have appeared terrible in its completeness. Several times had the defenders apparently attempted to stand, and as many times had they been hurled with even greater violence southwards. And now, before the campaign was a month old, the enemy were within an ace of the most complete victory of modern times. Many men will never forget that night—men on either side with high commands.

How the Kaiser must have chuckled when the French Cabinet left for Bordeaux! Bombastic phrases were perchance chasing themselves through his perverted mind. How fine he would look at Versailles, strutting about the Hall of Victories. He would sleep in the bed of the "Grand Monarque"—and in Les Invalides how he would smile at the tomb of Napoleon! Perhaps his statesmen were that very night drafting the terms of peace that a crushed adversary would be only too thankful to accept. His day had come at last! Henceforward how he would laugh at Democracy and Socialism. He would show them that he was master. The best weapon in all the world was sudden, bloody war. He would show his people that he was their Master, their Salvation, their War Lord. He was the greatest man in history, so he thought that night.

There may come a time when he will realise that, after all, he was only the most contemptible and pitiable. But that is by the way.

His Generals could not have been so sure. They must have seen the exhaustion of their men. Von Kluck must have already felt the weight of the army, rushed out of Paris by General Gallieni, that threatened to envelop his right flank. Von Heeringen must have realised that the offensive was being wrenched from his grasp. And the Crown Prince was throwing himself in vain upon the forts of Verdun and Nancy.

That night, too, somewhere behind the French lines, a man of very different stamp from the Kaiser was putting the final touches to the preparations of the greatest counter-attack in History. He knew that the enemy had literally overstepped his lines of communications, was exhausted, and nervous of failure so far from his bases. He knew that as long as de Castelnau clung on to the heights around Verdun, his centre and left were safely hinged upon a fortress under cover of which he could launch his counter-offensive with all the weight of his now completely mobilised reinforcements. Moreover, the army that had hurried pell-mell from Paris in taxicabs, in carts, in any form of conveyance that the authorities could lay hands upon, was now completely established on the left of the British, and if Von Kluck, lured on by the prize of Paris, pushed on, he would be outnumbered on his front and very seriously menaced on his right, and disaster would be certain.

Not that the Subaltern knew or cared much for these things. He and his men were past caring. Continuous retreat had first evoked surprise, then resentment, then, as fatigue began to grip them like a vice, a kind of dull apathy. He felt he would not have cared whatever happened. The finer emotions of sorrow or hope or happiness were drugged to insensibility. With the exception of odd moments when, absolutely causelessly, wild anger and ungovernable rage took possession of him and seemed to make his blood boil and seethe, he seemed to be degenerating into the state of mind commonly attributed to the dumb beasts of the field—indifferent to everything in the wide world except food and sleep.

That night a draft commanded by one Subaltern arrived to fill up the gaps.

The next day the retreat continued. The men's nerves were tried to breaking-point, and a little detail, small and of no consequence in itself, opened the lock, as it were, to a perfect river of growing anger and discontent.

This was how it happened. The Colonel had repeated the previous night the order about looting, and the men were under the impression that if any of them took so much as a green apple he would be liable to "death or some such less punishment as the Act shall provide." They talk about it and grumble, and then suddenly, without any warning except a clucking and scratching, the Mess Sergeant is seen by the greater part of the Battalion to issue triumphantly from a farm gate with two or three fat hens under his arms. Smiling broadly, totally ignorant of the enormity of his conduct, he deposits his load in the mess-cart drawn up to receive the loot!

The men did not let the opportunity slip by without giving vent to a lot of criticism.

The Subaltern's ears tingled at the remarks that he heard. Never in his life had he felt so ridiculous.

Luckily, another similar incident relieved the situation, shortly afterwards. During a few minutes' halt, a cow near the road stood gazing, with that apathetic interest peculiar to cows, at the thirsty men. It was not for nothing, as the French say, that one of the reservists had been a farm hand. He went up to the cow, unfastening his empty water-bottle as he went, and calmly leant down and began to milk the neglected animal until his bottle was full. It was not in itself a funny proceeding, but there was something about the calmness of both the cow and the man, and something about the queerness of the occasion, that appealed to the sense of humour of the dourest old Puritan of them all. They laughed, they roared, they shouted, in a way that reminded the Subaltern of the last "soccer" season.

The noise must have mystified the pursuing Uhlans not a little.

But the laugh did not last long on their lips. Directly afterwards they swung into a road already occupied by a train of refugees. After the sight of a good strong man struck down in his strength, this, perhaps, was the saddest sight of the whole war. How miserable they were, these helpless, hopeless people, trailing sadly along the road, the majority with all they had saved from the wreckage of their homes tied in a sheet, and carried on their backs. Some were leading a cow, others riding a horse, a few were in oxen-driven wagons. They looked as if they had lost faith in everything, even in God. They had the air of people calmly trying to realise the magnitude of the calamity which had befallen them, and failing.

Here and there the Subaltern thought he saw a gleam of reproach in their faces. It hurt him not a little. Only a few days ago the British had been advancing, as they thought, to certain victory. All had been sunshine, or at any rate hope. How the villagers had shouted and cheered them! How the women had wept with sheer joy, and shy young girls had thrust flowers into their buttonholes! What heroes they had felt swinging forward to meet the enemy, to defend the homes of their friends and Allies, and avenge their wrongs!

The role had been melodramatic, superb! But here they were, skirting the very gates of Paris, apparently fleeing before the enemy, and this without having made any very determined effort at resistance. Poor protectors they must have looked! Those simple peasants would not understand the efficacy, the necessity even, of running away "to live and fight another day," with a greater chance of success.

The Subaltern often used to wonder what the poor wretches thought of troops, which, though in possession of arms and ammunition, still retreated—always retreated. They could not understand.

The march came to an end about one o'clock. A halt of half-an-hour for dinner was ordered in the shade of some huge trees in a park. The mess-cart and Cookers arrived, and a meal was soon in progress. The Regimental Officer of what is now referred to as the "Old Army" was perhaps the best-mannered man one could possibly meet. His training in the Mess made him so. He was the sort of man who would not have done anything which so much as even suggested rudeness or greed. He was as scrupulous of his Mess Rules as a Roman Catholic Priest is of his conduct at High Mass. To the newly-joined Subaltern, Guest Night conveyed the holy impression of a religious rite. But here was a comic demonstration of the fact that the strictest training is only, after all, a veneer. Two Senior Officers were actually squabbling about a quarter-pound tin of marmalade! The Subaltern could not help smiling. The incident merely showed how raw and jagged the Great Retreat had left the nerves of those who survived it.

An hour's halt passed only too soon, and its later moments were made uneasy by the instinctive aversion which every one felt for the sound of the whistles that would mark the end of it. The Battalion, however, had no sooner swung into the road, than the Colonel, who had been reading a message with an expression of surprise, held up his hand to signal the halt. The moment was historic. Although none knew, it was the end of the Great Retreat.



CHAPTER XVI

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

The next day the Battalion linked up with the Brigade, and instead of proceeding in the usual direction—southwards—they turned to the north.

There was a great deal of subdued excitement. They were not going to move off for a precious hour or so, and, as "battle seemed imminent," the Subaltern did his best to make up the "deficiencies" in his equipment.

Another Subaltern lay stricken with dysentery in one of the regimental wagons, and he "borrowed" his revolver and ammunition. Apart from the fact that the poor fellow was in too great pain to dispute the robbery, he declared with embellishments that he never wanted to see the —— thing again. "Take it, and be —— to it!" he said.

Curiously enough, the Subaltern was able to stick to the loan through all the troubles that followed, and was eventually able to return it to its owner, met casually in the London Hippodrome, months later.

Soon afterwards, when they were marching through a village called Chaumes, he learnt that in the forthcoming battle they were to be in General Reserve, and this relieved the nervous tension for the moment. There was a feeling that a great chance of distinguished service was lost, but as the General Reserves are usually flung into the fight towards its concluding stages, he did not worry on that score.

The four Regiments of the Brigade were massed in very close formation in a large orchard, ready to move at a moment's notice. There they lay all day, sleeping with their rifles in their hands, or lying flat on their backs gazing at the intense blue of the sky overhead.

The heat, although they were in the first week in September, was greater than ever. The blue atmosphere seemed to quiver with the shock of guns.

General Headquarters had been established in a house near by, a middle-class, flamboyant, jerry-built affair. How its owner would have gasped if he could have seen the Field-Marshal conducting the British share of the great battle in his immodest "salle a manger!"

Aeroplanes were continually ascending from and descending to a ploughed field adjacent to the orchard. Motors were ceaselessly dashing up and down. Assuredly they were near to the heart of things.

That afternoon some one procured a page of the Daily Mirror, which printed the first casualty list of the war. Perhaps you can remember reading it. One was not used to the sensation. One felt that "it brought things home to one." Not that this was by any means necessary at that time and place. Still it was very depressing to think that in God's beautiful sunlight, brave, strong men were being maimed and laid low for ever. One had a vague feeling that it was blasphemous, and ought to be stopped.

It was not until dusk that a start was made, and the Regiment halted again about a mile further on and settled down for the night in a stubble field opposite a very imposing chateau.

Evidently the fight had gone well, for they passed at least two lines of hasty trenches quite deserted.

The Germans had at last been driven back!

Any joy that this discovery might have occasioned was sobered and tempered by the sight of small bodies of men bent double over their work in the purple twilight. They were burying-parties. Two twigs tied together and stuck in the brown mounds of earth was all the evidence there was of each little tragedy. During the retreat the Subaltern had naturally had little opportunity to realise this most pitiable side of war, the cold Aftermath of Battle.

I will tell you of the inglorious way in which one man spent this momentous day, the wonderful hours in which the tide turned, and a Continent was saved—in chasing chickens! He was the Mess Sergeant, and it was his duty. Anyway, the Mess dined gloriously off the chickens he caught, and as a couple of hayricks had been dismantled and distributed, everybody spent a tolerably comfortable night.



CHAPTER XVII

THE ADVANCE BEGINS

Although they stood to arms at the first flush of daylight on the following day, they did not march off until nearly eleven o'clock. The men were moved into the leafy grounds of the chateau to keep them out of the sun, and beyond the observation of hostile aircraft.

The regimental butchers slew one or two sheep during the wait; but the meat subsequently proved to be abominably tough, and the fat collected to oil the bolts of the men's rifles only served to make them stiffer than ever.

The Subaltern had entertained fond hopes that owing to his recent unusually long hours of sleep he would not be attacked by the same nauseating sensations of fatigue; but his hopes were vain. The sleep seemed to have made things worse. A little rest had developed an overwhelming desire for more, and he felt worse than ever.

He longed as he had never longed before for long cool drinks and clean white sheets. He imagined himself at home. What would he do? He pictured himself in the bathroom eagerly peeling off his puttees as the water splashed into the pale blue bath. How he would wallow in it! He could feel how the water would caress his body, tepid and soothing.

On the table in the dining-room, green and cool with its view of the sombre pine wood, stood a long cold drink of what? Cider, perhaps, or lime-juice and soda, something you could drink and drink and drink. Last of all—culminating pleasure of heaven—his red bedroom, with the sheets ready turned down for him, soft and white and alluring. That would have been heaven.

But this heaven of his was very far away from the hard dusty road and the eternal poplars! With a painful jolt his thoughts would return to the realities of life; he would feel dazed and annoyed, and in his heart of hearts he wanted to cry.

* * * * *

Sir Archibald Murray passed in a car, holding an animated conversation with a much-beribboned and distinguished-looking French General. He looked very pleased with himself, as well he might, for the greatest work of his career had begun the day before with astounding success.

The Subaltern must have felt very tired and dissatisfied that afternoon. Having exhausted the painful thoughts of home, he began to tell himself what an awful life Active Service was. It never occurred to him to be thankful that a youth so young should have the luck to play his part in such tremendous events. He did not at the time realise that there were thousands of adventurous souls at home who would have given an arm to have been where he had been.

He did not realise that in after days the memory of every weary hour of trudging, of every bullet that had hummed by, and of every shell that had burst, would be a joy for ever. The thought had never struck any of them, unsentimental souls!

At this point his memory confessedly breaks down. He remembers perfectly a certain "ten minutes' halt" spent in the shade of a sheaf of corn. He remembers plunging into a pine forest; but thenceforward there is a blank. His memory snaps. He cannot recollect passing through that wood, much less passing out of it. A link in the chain of his memory must have snapped.

When next he recollects anything clearly it may have been that night, the next night, or the night after that. Anyway, it was very dark, and the Battalion was eventually halted in an open field. Somehow or other, straw was procured for the rest, but his own Platoon was sent forward to hold an outpost position along the banks of a small stream.

Although in the daytime the sun shone with undiminished fervour, the nights were getting certainly far more chilly than they had been in August. But when one has to get up at daybreak, having never had more than four hours sleep, one does not notice it much.

During the night a fresh draft arrived.

The next morning they very soon encountered an entirely new sight, a French village hastily evacuated by the enemy. At least half of the houses had been broken into, and all the shops and inns. The Germans had dragged chairs and tables to the roadside, and they must have been sitting there drinking and smoking when the news of the British advance, and orders to retire had come upon them. Everything seemed to show that the enemy had left at the shortest notice. He had not had time to perpetrate any of his well-known barbarities on the few inhabitants who had remained in their houses, and no attempt had apparently been made even to burn the village!

A little further on, the abstemious Hun had obviously made a halt. The litter of bottles was appalling. There was a perfect wall of them for about a quarter of a mile. The proportion of bottles to the number of men estimated to occupy four hundred yards (1000) was alarming. There must have been enough drink to upset a British Army Corps. Most certainly the Germans in front must have been out of hand, and very drunk. The men were vastly amused.

The day dragged on very wearily, and no deployment was made. Apparently the enemy had taken about as much as he could comfortably endure on the previous two days. He was not waiting to be pushed back; he was speeding north-east as fast as his legs could carry him.

In the afternoon a heavy shower rather damped the excitement evoked by the enemy's dramatic failure to hold his own. Sounds of a fierce encounter were heard in front, and the Brigade was hurried down a steep and wooded decline to the scene of action. They arrived too late to share in the actual infliction of defeat upon the enemy, but they were immediately sent in pursuit, as the other Brigade was very tired and rather shaken.

A man told the Subaltern that some unfortunate company, marching in fours up a village street, had been fired upon by a machine-gun controlled by a few men left behind by the enemy to inflict the greatest possible damage before discovery and capture. They had done their work well, for, concealed in the roof of a house, they had swept the street at point-blank range and literally mown down a whole company before they had been located, and "put out of action." Still they must have been brave men, for the personal result of such an exploit is certain death.

The state of that street had better not be described. The Aftermath of Battle! It is depressing, cold and passionless, dirty and bloody; the electricity of life has gone from the air, and the wine of life-blood is spilt, it seems, so needlessly upon the ground. Perhaps the spirits of the dead linger over it. Their presence is instinctively felt. As, overpowered with the sorrow of it, you pass by, the thought steals into your mind, "When will my turn come?" This Aftermath of Battle is assuredly the most awful thing in war.

As soon as the men began to scale the steep incline opposite, they saw that the costs had not been paid by the British alone. Figures, covered in most cases by their own grey overcoats, lay out upon the ground. Leaning up against a wall a body was still lolling. It was a sight that no one who saw it will ever forget. There was no head; it had been shorn oft as cleanly as if the man had been guillotined. An unburst shell had probably swept the man's head from his shoulders as he looked over the wall, and the aimless-looking trunk was still leaning against the wall as if "waiting for further orders."

The pursuit was continued until it was quite dark. The Companies wheeled into the fields, and slept where they stood. The Colonel delivered a short address, which showed that all was not as well as it looked. But what really did worry them was lack of straw. The Colonel was of the opinion that the enemy would take his stand on the opposite bank of the Marne, which, he told them, was only half a mile ahead. To-morrow there would be a fight, the like of which neither they nor any one else had seen before.

They were disturbed that night, not indeed by the fear of what to-morrow might hold in store, but by a small stampede of escaped horses, who careered madly over the sleeping lines, injuring one man very severely.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE CROSSING OF THE MARNE

As soon as dawn broke—a dawn exceptionally cold and cheerless—the cavalry pushed forward to effect some sort of reconnaissance. Meanwhile the infantry had nothing better to do than to conceal themselves behind the copses that covered the slope, and await their turn. In about an hour's time they were deployed and moved cautiously forward to the attack, the Batteries being already placed in readiness for the beginning of the "show."

No army in the world can execute this movement as scientifically or as safely as the British Army. Memories of South Africa and Indian frontier fights have left us undoubtedly the finest scouting army in Europe. We were, of course, hopelessly outmatched in artillery and numbers. But artillery being equal, there was not a Brigade in any army in the world that could have held its own against a British Brigade. That, however, is by the way.

They pressed steadily forward, and, having breasted the slope, the valley of the Marne burst suddenly upon their view. It was at least three miles in breadth, and the opposite heights were screened by woods. A small town marked the bridge. The country was "open"—painfully open; there was not an atom of real cover between them and the heights opposite.

But no shells came whistling towards them. No doubt the enemy was holding his fire until they were within closer range. (Not a pleasant thought, this, by any means.) But no, they went on scrambling down the deep slope, and still no sound of firing disturbed the morning silence. As each moment fled by the Subaltern thought to himself, "Not yet! Well, the next minute will bring things about our heads!" But the next minute kept on passing as uneventfully as its predecessors.

At last they reached the bridge and found it absolutely undamaged. Even then the Subaltern could not repress the thought that all this was only a trick, and that they were being lured on to destruction. But his sanguinary forebodings were not justified, and the opposite heights were scaled without opposition.

He afterwards learnt, that, however much the Germans might have wanted to hold this magnificent line, the strategical situation had become so pressing that on this sector nothing could save them from disaster except a complete and hurried retreat. They were all but outflanked on their right, which was already very seriously bent back; while in the centre General Foch had driven in a wedge which bade fair to crumple up the whole line.

There was nothing in any way remarkable about the little town on the other side of the river. It had the air of a neglected gutter-child, dirty and disconsolate. There were the usual signs of German occupation—broken windows, ravaged shops, and, of course, the inevitable bottles.

Here it was that the Subaltern noticed for the first time that the Huns had a distinctive smell of their own. It was a curious smell, completely baffling description. If it is true that certain odours suggest certain colours, one would have described this as a brown smell, preferably a reddish-brown smell. Certain it was that the enemy left it behind him wherever he had been, as sure a clue to his passing as broken wine-bottles!

The Subaltern always associates the climbing of the opposite slope with pangs of a thirst so intense that he almost forgot to wonder why the Germans had evacuated so excellent a position without firing a single shot. But Headquarters were evidently not going to allow them to push forward into some previously arranged trap. Having by three o'clock in the afternoon firmly established themselves on the wooded crests of the slope, they were "pulled up" while a further reconnaissance was being made. Meanwhile, a sort of outpost position was taken up.

The Subaltern's Platoon was to guard the back edge of a wood, and as he established his supports in a farm, most of his men were able to fill their water-bottles, have a wash and brush up, and generally prepare themselves for whatever the next move might be. The farmer and his wife, who had remained in their home, did everything that was required of them; but he could not help noticing that the old couple did not seem as pleased at their Allies' success as one would have naturally expected. The reason was soon forthcoming. Following his usual plan of getting as much information as possible out of the French, he heard the old man, who seemed unaccountably shy and diffident, mutter casually—

"J'ai pense que vous etiez tous partis hier soir."

"Comment?" said he, "tous partis? Mais, Monsieur, nous sommes les premiers Anglais qui sont arrives ici."

"Mais, Monsieur! Anglais? Ce n'est pas possible!"

"C'est vrai, assurement."

"Mais, L'Armee Anglaise porte toujours les habits rouges!"

The Subaltern laughed outright. This simple fellow actually believed that the English fought in scarlet. Even now he was not thoroughly convinced that they really were English. Ignorance goes hand in hand with obstinacy, and these simple old peasant folk defended their stupidity with a veritable wall of impenetrable incredulity.

The Subaltern was still laboriously engaged in explaining matters to the man, when part of the Headquarter's Staff trotted up the road with a clatter and a swing and scurry that looked as if they were wanted very urgently on the left. It was the first time during the campaign that he had seen the Corps Commander and the Chief of the General Staff on horseback.

It must have been about five o'clock when he received a message to concentrate on the main road. On the way he was accosted by a woman perfectly distraught with grief, who explained that two days ago her little son had disappeared into "ce bois la" never to come out again.

"Si votre fils vive encore, il reviendra, bien sur, Madame. S'il est mort, moi, je ne peux pas vous aider." Terrible to relate, the sight of such grief annoyed rather than saddened him.

The advance was continued until it was quite dark, when the Battalion denuded the usual hayrick, and "dossed down" in the usual stubble field.



CHAPTER XIX

AN ADVANCED-GUARD ACTION

At about eleven o'clock the next morning his Company Commander—the Captain was leading as the Major was now second in command of the Battalion—told the Subaltern to ride back to the transport wagons and get some fresh maps and some chocolate which he had left in one of the carts. It was pleasant to get a ride, and to rest one's feet for awhile, so he took his time in getting back to the transport.

No sooner had he reached the wagons than a gun boomed. He thought nothing of that, however. Guns were always going off, at the oddest times, and without any apparent reason. Four seconds later another rolled out, followed closely by a third, fourth and fifth. Soon a regular cannonade broke out. There was obviously mischief in the air, so he crammed the maps hastily into his haversack and the chocolate into his pocket and regained the Battalion as soon as he could on the exhausted animal. Even as he was pressing forward, he heard the crackle of musketry somewhere out of sight on the left.

Of course, the very thing that he had feared had happened. His Company had been rapidly deployed and had already disappeared over the crest. He explained matters to the Major who was in command of the remainder during the Colonel's absence; dismounted, and set off on foot towards the sounds of the firing. He ran against the Company Sergeant-Major in charge of the ammunition, who told him where his Platoon was.

The next thing was to cross the fire-swept crest. Now, crossing fire-swept crests is manifestly unpleasant—especially if you are alone. If you are leading fifty men at least one and half times as old as you are, who look to you for guidance and control, it is not so bad. Bravery is very closely allied to "conspicuous gallantry," and "conspicuous gallantry" in the field is almost impossible when there is no one to look on. But he was too tired to worry much whether he was hit or not, and his Platoon had to be reached as soon as possible.

He found them lined up behind a small bank, waiting for orders to reinforce the first line. Taking his glasses out of their case, he crawled forward to have a look at the position for himself. The Platoon in front was established behind a mud bank, firing occasional shots at the enemy, who appeared to have dug himself in behind a railway cutting at least five hundred yards distant. Although bullets were humming pretty thickly through the air, the casualties on the British side so far were only two or three men slightly wounded. They had orders to "hang on" to that position until the centre and right should be sufficiently strengthened for the main attack to materialise, when they were to push on as best they might. Having learnt this, the Subaltern crawled back, and sent out three men "to establish touch" with the front Platoon.

An hour passed before anything further happened. During that time the Platoon Sergeant told him of the great difficulty they had had in reaching this advanced position at all, as they had been shelled from the front by the enemy, and from the left by their own batteries. Accidents such as this often happened, and the artillery were not really as culpable as would at first sight appear. Advanced-guard actions materialised so suddenly, and situations changed so quickly, that it was not always possible to circulate precise orders. The gunners' ideas of the relative positions seemed to be, during the opening stages of the attack, rather hazy—a fact that was very much resented by the men. "We ain't come out 'ere to be targets to them ruddy gunners," one fellow grumbled.

Soon, however, things straightened out, and in an hour's time the various movements preparatory to the attack had been completed. The enemy, seeing that he was almost surrounded, and that it would be impossible to extricate the greater part of his command from the battle, resolved at least to save his guns, which were accordingly withdrawn.

When at length the Subaltern's Platoon pushed forward in the wake of the leading Platoon, no less a personage appeared unaccountably on the scene than the Colonel. He had thrown off the worried look that had been growing on him of late. Some of the officers, too junior to understand how uneasy lies the head that is crowned with the responsibility for many lives, had been heard to say that the Colonel's manner and general outlook upon the campaign was tinged with unnecessary anxiety, and that he had no right to allow the Germans to disturb his peace of mind. If this were so, the presence of actual and tangible danger completely obliterated all traces of nerves. He stood up in the firing-line. He drew himself up to the full of his height, and seemed to inhale with pleasure the dangerous air. All the time bullets were humming overhead like swift and malignant insects, or striking the ground with a spatter of brown earth.

The Adjutant, following him, suddenly bent double as if he had been struck below the belt; but the Colonel merely straightened himself, and not a nerve in his phlegmatic face twitched.

"What's the matter?" asked the Colonel.

"Only a bullet struck my revolver hilt, sir," replied the Adjutant. It had splintered the woodwork and been deflected between his arm and ribs.

Near by a man rose on his knees to get a better shot at the enemy.

"What's that man doing? Get down there this moment!" roared the Colonel.

Then, as he recognised an old soldier of the regiment, "Atkins, how dare you expose yourself unnecessarily? Your wife used to do my washing in Tidshot. Me? Oh, I'm only an old bachelor. It doesn't matter about me. There's nobody to care what happens to me." And, well pleased with his joke, the Colonel passed down the line, proud of his magnificent bravery.

There is something about the rough-and-tumble of battle that lifts one above one's self. One's legs and arms are not the same listless limbs that were crying for rest only a short hour ago. One is envigoured; the excitement stimulates. One feels great, magnanimous, superb. The difficulty lies not in forcing oneself to be brave, but in curbing ridiculous impulses, and in forcing the brain to work slowly and smoothly. The smallest natures rise to great heights. An ordinary self-centred creature performs acts of dazzling generosity towards fellows he does not even know—with everything to lose and nothing to gain. He will rescue a wounded man under heavy fire, to whom an hour previously he would have refused to lend sixpence.

Why is it?

If the enemy were a roaring brazen beast, such as the knights of the fairy tales used to fight, one could understand it. But he is not. You cannot even see him. Three-quarters of a mile ahead there is a dark brown line, and that is all. Whence comes the love of battle? Is it roused by the little messengers of death that whizz invisibly by? No one can say; the whole feeling is most probably the result of imagination and desire to do great things.

On they swept. The leading Platoon was now covering the ground at such a pace that it was impossible to catch up with them. As the ground was open the whole line could be seen sweeping forward to engulf the enemy. The long dotted lines of brown advanced steadily and inexorably. Line upon line of them breasted the crest, and followed in the wake of the leading wave. It was scarcely a spectacular sight, yet it was the vindication of the British methods of attack.

The wild firing of the Germans had little effect. Curiously enough, the line that suffered least was the first, and even in the others the casualties were negligible. And all the time they were nearing the railway bank.

But the end was in sight, and the enemy realised that further resistance would be useless. They were caught. About half a dozen men sprang on to the railway bank and began furiously to wag white sheets of paper or rag—anything white. They must have been brave men to do such a thing. The British gunners either did not see their signs, or perhaps refused to accept them on account of various "jokes" that the enemy had at other times played with the white flag. Anyway the firing continued with unabated fury. They stood there to the end without flinching, and when they fell other men took their places. It is mean and untruthful to say that the Germans are cowards. Certain it was that their pathetic bravery—there is always something sad about bravery—so touched the British that they accepted the surrender without reserve or suspicion. Even the artillery ceased fire.

At this point the leading Platoon broke clean away. They could not be held in. The orderly advance degenerated into a wild dash. Men bent double and rushed. Determination was written on each flushed face. The Germans must have been terrified; it looked as if they were to be bayoneted as they stood, with their arms raised in surrender. It must have been a very trying moment for them, indeed, as the British raced towards them up the incline. The leading men were soon clambering up the embankment. What would happen? Was a disgraceful and bloody massacre about to begin? The excitement was intense. The Subaltern ran on harder than ever, with some vague idea of "stopping a scene," but he need not have bothered. The men were not out for blood or scalps. All they wanted was souvenirs or helmets! They got them with such success that there was little left for the other platoons.

When the Subaltern came up the "show" was over. There were a great many dead Germans lying, as they had died, behind the embankment. The thought of taking something which they had worn never occurred to him. If it had been he would have dismissed it on the grounds that there was no means of sending such things home, while to add to the weight and worry of his kit by carrying a "Pickelhaube" about, indefinitely, for the rest of the campaign, was, of course, unthinkable.

Then the "rally" sounded, and the companies that had taken part in the attack began to re-form. There was a considerable delay before two of the platoons appeared at the rallying point. The men did not come in a body but by driblets. He began to get nervous about the other two Subalterns, and in a few minutes went to see what had happened to them.

"Lord bless you, sir, 'e's all right," said a man in answer to the Subaltern's inquiry. "We wouldn't let no harm come to 'im." The man who spoke was an old soldier whom he knew well, tall, wiry, commanding—the sort of man that a young officer leans upon, and who, reciprocally, relies on his officer. In the old Peace days, if any special job that required intelligence or reliance were going, he always saw that this man got it. He had made a sort of pet of him; and now he was openly, frankly displaying a state of mind akin to worship towards another officer. It was defection, rank desertion. A ridiculous feeling of jealousy surged up in the Subaltern's mind, as he turned back towards the Company.

As he regained the road, many stretchers passed. They were no longer things of tragedy, to be passed by with a shudder and averted eyes—he was getting used to horror.



CHAPTER XX

DEFENCE

It was now midday, and the Officers of the two companies that had been deployed gathered round the mess-cart. The remaining companies, who had been kept in local reserve during the fight, were sent out to bury the dead. The rain began to fall in torrents, and somehow the memory of crouching under the mess-cart to get shelter has left a far more definite and indelible impression upon the Subaltern's mind than the actual moments of danger and excitement.

A large band of prisoners had been captured by our troops that day. Small detachments had from time to time been captured ever since the turn at Chaumes, but this was different. There were long lines of them, standing bolt upright, and weaponless. The Subaltern looked at them curiously. They struck him as on the whole taller than the English, and their faces were not brown, but grey. He admired their coats, there was a martial air in the long sweep of them. And he confessed that one looked far more of a soldier in a helmet. There is a ferocity about the things, a grimness well suited to a soldier.... Not that clothes make the man.

He sternly refused himself the pleasure of going to get a closer sight of them. He wanted very badly to see them, perhaps to talk French with them, but a feeling that it was perhaps infra dignitatem debarred him. The men, however, had no such scruples. They crowded round their captives, and slowly and silently surveyed them. They looked at them with the same sort of interest that one displays towards an animal in the Zoo, and the Germans paid just as much attention to their regard as Zoo animals do. Considering that only a short hour ago they had been trying to take each other's lives, there seemed to be an appalling lack of emotion in either party. Fully half an hour the Tommies inspected them thus. Then, with infinite deliberation, one man produced a packet of "Caporal" cigarettes and offered one, with an impassive countenance, to a German. As far as the Subaltern could see, not a single word was exchanged nor a gesture made. They did not move away until it was time to fall in.

The advance was continued until it was dark, and intermittent firing was heard throughout the afternoon on either flank. The German retreat, which had in its first stages been conducted with such masterly skill, was rapidly developing into a hurried and ill-conducted movement, that bade fair to lead to disaster. Reports of large quantities of prisoners were coming in more frequently than ever.

It was at this time that the Subaltern first heard the now notorious story of the German who had been at the Savoy, and who gave himself up to the Officer whom he recognised as an old habitue. One of the Officers in the Regiment said that this had happened to him, and was believed—for the moment. Later on, Officers out of every corps solemnly related similar experiences, with occasional variations in the name of the hotel. Usually it was the Savoy or the Ritz; less often the Carlton, or even the Cecil, but the "Pic" or the "Troc" were absolutely barred. The story multiplied so exceedingly that one began to suspect that the entire German corps in front was exclusively composed of ex-waiters of smart London hotels.

Another sign that the Germans were beginning to be thrust back more quickly than they liked was the frequent abandonment of transport. Whole trains of motor lorries that had been hastily burned and left by the roadside, and all sorts of vehicles with broken wheels, were constantly being passed. The Subaltern remembers seeing a governess cart, and wondering what use the Germans had found for it. Perhaps a German colonel had been driven gravely in it, at the head of his men. He wondered whether the solemn Huns would have been capable of seeing the humour of such a situation.

Horses, too, seemed to have been slaughtered by the score. They looked like toy horses, nursery things of wood. Their faces were so unreal, their expressions so glassy. They lay in such odd postures, with their hoofs sticking so stiffly in the air. It seemed as if they were toys, and were lying just as children had upset them. Even their dimensions seemed absurd. Their bodies had swollen to tremendous sizes, destroying the symmetry of life, confirming the illusion of unreality.

The sight of these carcases burning in the sun, with buzzing myriads of flies scintillating duskily over their unshod hides, excited a pity that was almost as deep as his pity for slain human beings. After all, men came to the war with few illusions, and a very complete knowledge of the price to be paid. They knew why they were there, what they were doing, and what they might expect. They could be buoyed up by victory, downcast by defeat. Above all, they had a Cause, something to fight for, and if Fate should so decree, something to die for. But these horses were different; they could neither know nor understand these things. Poor, dumb animals, a few weeks ago they had been drawing their carts, eating their oats, and grazing contentedly in their fields. And then suddenly they were seized by masters they did not know, raced away to places foreign to them, made to draw loads too great for them, tended irregularly, or not at all, and when their strength failed, and they could no longer do their work, a bullet through the brain ended their misery. Their lot was almost worse than the soldiers'!

To the Subaltern it seemed an added indictment of war that these wretched animals should be flung into that vortex of slaughter. He pitied them intensely, the sight of them hurt him; and the smell of them nauseated him. Every memory of the whole advance is saturated with that odour. It was pungent, vigorous, demoralising. It filled the air, and one's lungs shrank before it. Once, when a man drove his pick through the crisp, inflated side, a gas spurted out that was positively asphyxiating and intolerable.

However much transport the Germans abandoned, however severe the losses they sustained, they always found time to break open every estaminet they passed, and drain it dry. Wretched inns and broken bottles proved to be just as reliable a clue to their passing as the smell of them.



CHAPTER XXI

THE DEFENCE OF THE BRANDY

The next morning two companies were detached from the Battalion as escort to a brigade of artillery. The other two companies, who had returned during the night, did not seem to be greatly upset by their gruesome task of burying the dead.

They did not come in contact with the enemy, and no outstanding incident impressed itself upon the Subaltern's mind. The heat had abated with dramatic swiftness. A wind that was almost chilly swept the plains, driving grey clouds continually across the sun. The summer was over. That day they joined battle with the outposts of a foe that was to prove more hateful and persistent than the German winter.

The name of a village known as Suchy-le-Chateau figured on many of the signposts that they passed, but they never arrived there, and, branching off east of Braisne, they came upon the remainder of the Battalion, drawn up in a stubble field.

A driving rain had begun to fall early in the afternoon, and when at length the march was finished their condition was deplorable. Though tired out with a long day's march, they dared not rest, because to lie down in the sodden straw was to court sickness. Their boots, worn and unsoled, offered no resistance whatever to the damp. Very soon they could hear their sodden socks squelching with water as they walked. A night of veritable horror lay in front of them; they were appalled with the prospect of it. The rain seemed to mock at the completeness of their misery.

However, the Fates were kind, for the General, happening to pass, took pity on them and allowed them to be billeted in the outhouses of a farm near by. The sense of relief which this move gave to the Subaltern was too huge to describe. Contentment took possession of him utterly. The tension of his nerves and muscles relaxed: he thought that the worries and hardships of that day, at least, were over.

But he was wrong.

No sooner had his Platoon wearily thrown their rifles and equipment into the musty barn that was allotted to them, than the Colonel told him that he would have to sleep with his men, the reason being that the owner of the farm, on the approach of the Germans, had hidden a large stock of brandy beneath the straw in the very barn that his men had entered. The farmer had asked the Colonel to save his liquor from the troops, and the Colonel, with horrible visions of a regiment unmanageable and madly intoxicated before his eyes, replied that most assuredly he would see that the men did not get hold of the brandy. The Subaltern told his sergeant, but otherwise the proximity of bliss was kept a strict secret from the men.

Throughout the whole of that long day the Subaltern had been looking forward to, longing for, and idealising the rest which was to follow after the labours of the day. And now that it had at last been achieved, it proved to be a very poor imitation of the ideal rest and slumber that he had been yearning for. To begin with, the delays before quarters were settled upon were interminable. And then this news about the brandy. The evening meal was delayed almost a couple of hours, and every minute of the delay annoyed him, because it was so much precious time for sleep lost. Even when the meal arrived, it proved to be insufficient, and he was still hungry, cold and damp, when at last he hobbled across the yard to the barn.

The place had no ventilation. The air was foul with the smell of damp grain, and men, and wet boots. He hesitated at the door; he would rather have slept in the open air, but the yard was inches deep in mud and manure. He groped forward, and at every inch that he penetrated further into the place, the air seemed to become thicker, more humid, more foul. In the thick darkness his foot stumbled on the sleeping form of a man, who rolled over and swore drowsily. At last, after interminable feeling in the darkness, and balancing himself on sacks of grain, he attained the corner where the bottles lay buried, and threw himself down to sleep.

But sleep was impossible. In spite of the insupportable atmosphere he remained cold. Every second some one was moving! One instant a man would shuffle and cough in one corner, then some one would grunt and groan as he turned restlessly in his sleep, and the happier few who had achieved slumber would snore laboriously. Now and then a man would rise shakily to his feet and thread his way unsteadily to the door, kicking up against recumbent forms as he went, and evoking language as murky as the atmosphere. The Subaltern felt a savage joy in the recriminations and expletives that filled the air. Like lightning, they relieved the thunder-pressure of the air.



CHAPTER XXII

STRATEGY AS YOU LIKE IT

Dawn found them already paraded in the farmyard, shivering, and not much better rested than when they had entered the barn of dreadful memory the night before. Each day the accumulation of fatigue and nerve-strain became greater; each day it grew harder to drag the weary body to its feet, and trudge onwards. Though the tide of victory had turned, though every yard they covered was precious ground re-won, they longed very intensely for a lull. The Subaltern felt in a dim way that the point beyond which flesh and blood could not endure was not very far ahead. As it was, he marvelled at himself.

During the course of the morning the Captain returned to the Company, with a little map, and a great deal of information concerning the strategy of the war, about which everybody knew so little.

To begin at the beginning, he said that the Allies had begun the campaign under two great disadvantages. The first was their very serious numerical inferiority in forces that could be immediately used. If numbers alone counted, the Germans were bound to win until the French were fully mobilised.

The other disadvantage was the pre-conceived notion that the German Government would keep its word with regard to the violation of Belgian neutrality. If this had been observed, it would have been almost a strategical impossibility to turn the Allied left flank. The attack in force was expected to be made in the Lorraine area. Consequently, when it became evident that the main German effort was to be launched through Belgium, all pre-conceived plans of French concentration had either to be abandoned, or, at any rate, greatly modified in order to meet the enemy offensive from an unexpected quarter.

After their unexpected set-back at Liege, the invaders met with little resistance from the Belgian army, which was, of course, hopelessly outnumbered, and their armies were rapidly forming up on a line north of the Sambre, which roughly extended south-east by east to north-west by west. Meanwhile, the initial French offensive which had been launched in the region of the Vosges had resulted in the temporary capture of Muelhouse, and had then been abandoned in order to face the threatening disaster from the north.

It was thought advisable to wait until the concentration of the English Army was completed, then, to comply with an obvious rule of strategy which says, "Always close with your enemy when and wherever he shows himself, in order to discover and hold him to his dispositions," a general advance was made along the whole centre and left of the Allied line. The line swung forward, and perhaps some day one of the handful of men who know will tell exactly what was the object of this movement. Was it meant to join battle in all seriousness with the enemy, and to drive him from Belgium, or was it just a precautionary measure to hold and delay him? Probably the latter. The Allied Generalissimo had probably made up his mind to the fact that the first battle—the battle in Belgium—was already lost by the Allies' lateness in concentration. Regarded in this light the battle in Belgium was undoubtedly the greatest rear-guard action in History.

On account of a possible under-estimation of the enemy's strength, and of the completeness of his dispositions, the Allies found themselves, when the lines first clashed, in a more serious position than they probably anticipated. The enemy gained two initial successes that decided, past doubt, the fate of the battle which was now raging along the whole front from Mons to Muelhouse. Namur, the fortress which had enjoyed a reputation as the Port Arthur of Europe, fell before the weight of the German siege howitzer in a few days. The magnitude of the disaster appalled the whole world, for indirectly the piercing of these forts laid open the road to Paris. Nor was this all. The enemy forced the passage of the Sambre at Charleroi, and threatened to cut the Allied centre from the left. The British Army, on the extreme left, found itself confronted by a numerical superiority of nearly three to one, while its left flank and lines of communication with Havre were seriously menaced by a huge body of Uhlan cavalry. In a word, the positions taken up by the whole of the Allied centre and left were no longer tenable. To hang on would have been to court disaster. There was nothing for it but to cut and go.

But the Allies did not meet with the same ill luck along the whole line. The small successes gained on the right, in Alsace, had apparently been consolidated. The German tide through Luxembourg was stemmed, and, even though the Kaiser himself witnessed its bombardment, Nancy held out. But the trump card in the Allies' hand was Verdun. De Castlenau clung resolutely to the chain of forts crowning the heights in front of the town, and his successful defence saved Paris. Whatever might happen to the centre and left, the right, at any rate, seemed safe.

The Allied Generalissimo was forced to give way before the fury of the German onslaught in Belgium. He withdrew his armies while there was yet time, thus averting irrevocable disaster. According to all the rules of the game, he should have retired his whole line southwards, in order to ensure the safety of Paris. But he did not throw his highest trump: he clung to Verdun, and left Paris exposed. His armies retreated, not on the Capital, but in a sweeping movement that was hinged upon Verdun. He realised that the fate of Paris depended not upon its being covered by the Allies, but upon the fate of the second great battle of the war.

Meanwhile, the great retreat—this hinging movement—continued, very slowly near Verdun, very, very swiftly on the left. Days passed; no attempt was made to check the enemy's advance, and the passing of each day left Paris more exposed. The world gasped at the breathless swiftness with which disaster seemed to be swooping down upon the Capital. But every day de Castlenau was consolidating his defence of Verdun, in face of tremendous odds; and every day the ferocity of the German onrush waned. The line continued to swing resolutely back, until such time as a completed mobilisation should allow the Allies to turn upon the enemy in greater force, in their own time, and on chosen ground. A premature effort would have spoiled all. They had to wait for their chance.

Meanwhile, rapid concentrations of reserves were taking place behind the line, the most famous instance of which was the Reserve Army moved out of Paris by General Gallieni in taxis, fiacres, and any vehicle the authorities could commandeer to ensure that the Army should be in its place in time. It was in its place. Just as the world was beginning to say that the war was over, General Joffre decided that the iron was hot, that the time to strike had arrived. "The moment has come," he wrote, "to die where you stand, rather than give way."

The outlook changed from black to rose with the completeness and ease of a pantomime transformation scene. The Verdun heights remained impregnable. The whole line turned and fought where it stood. The enemy, worn out by his exertions, stretched his line of communications to breaking-point, and it was said that his supplies of food and munitions had come temporarily very near to collapse. The Allies checked him. He could not even hold his own. In two days he was moving back, away from Paris.

The economic reasons were not the only factors in his downfall. He was beaten by the Allied morale, and also by the Allied strategy. Von Kluck, the Commander of the German right, hurrying on in an abortive pursuit of the British Army, found that he was outflanked by the army of Gallieni, which, stronger than his own, threatened his line of communications. To press on towards Paris would have been suicidal. To linger in his present position would have been to court capture. He, therefore, began the famous march across the French front, by which he hoped to gain touch with the army on his left, and as he turned, the British and French fell upon him simultaneously, as in a vice. For a day the line wavered irresolutely, then Von Kluck realised that the pendulum of success was beginning to swing the other way. He had to retire or face irretrievable disaster.

Thus Paris was saved. The tremendous blow aimed at it was parried, and it seemed as if the striker tottered, as if he had overreached his strength. The treachery with which the Germans had inaugurated the movement, the brutality and cruelty with which they had carried it through, were brought to nothing before the superior morale of the Allied troops, and the matchless strategy of their Commander.

The enemy was checked along the whole line, but the Allies were not satisfied with that. The French flung themselves upon the invader with a ferocity and heroism that was positively reminiscent of the Napoleonic legends. General Foch, in command of the General Reserve, achieved the culminating success in this victory, known as the Battle of the Marne. He broke the enemy's line: he thrust into the gap a wedge so powerful that the enemy was forced to give way on either side of it, because his centre was broken. The victory of the Marne was assured.

Slowly at first, latterly with increasing speed, the Allies were hurling the enemy northwards. He was becoming more demoralised every day. A victory even greater than the Marne was in sight.

* * * * *

"And that," said the Captain, "is where we are at present."

"They'll turn on us in a day or two, and then there'll be the devil of a fight," said the Senior Subaltern.

Everybody laughed at him, but they had an uneasy feeling that he would be right.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE LAST ADVANCE

While he was dreaming, the time slipped by almost unnoticed. It was not until eleven o'clock that a halt was made. He could just discern in the darkness the dim outlines of what appeared to be a large farm-house, surrounded by barns and outhouses. Some transport had got jammed in the yard. He could hear the creak of wheels, the stamping of hoofs, and shouts. There was not a light anywhere, and they waited for half-an-hour that seemed interminable, for they were drenched through, and tired, and were longing for any cover out of the wet. Sounds of shuffling were heard in front, and at last they found themselves on the move again. Another fifty yards, as far as a gate in a wall, and then they stuck again. More weary, exasperating minutes; then at last the bedraggled figure of the Captain loomed out of the darkness.

"Is that you?" he asked.

"All right, lead round here!"

He led them to a large barn, and they turned in to sleep just as they were. No supper, not a fire to dry their sodden clothes, not a blanket to cover their chilled bodies.

As usual, they got to sleep somehow, and as usual dawn came about thirty hours before they were ready for it.

They moved out immediately, and continued the course of the march. The rain-laden clouds had rolled completely away. The sky looked hard and was scarcely blue; the country was swept by a strong nipping wind, for which they were very thankful, since it served to dry their clothes.

The Machine-gun Officer, passing down the Battalion, walked with them while he told them two wonderful stories. It may have been crude, but in another way it was almost as satisfying as breakfast.

He solemnly explained to them that the war was nearly over. The Germans, lured into making this tremendous and unnecessary effort to capture Paris, had left their eastern front dangerously weak. The Russians were pouring into Germany in their millions. The Cossacks were already around Posen. Nobody quite knew where Posen was, but it sounded deliciously like Potsdam. Anyway, they would be there in a month.

A few surplus millions, who, presumably on account of the crush, could not burst into Germany by the quickest route, had been despatched, via Archangel, to the northern coast of Scotland. Their progress thenceforwards is, of course, notorious. By now they had safely landed at Antwerp, and had pursued a career that must have bored them as monotonously victorious. Namur, "and all those places" had been captured, and at that moment Maubeuge was being relieved. The Germans were being sandwiched between the victorious Russian, French and British Arms. They could only escape as through the neck of a bottle. And the end of the war was so near, and so definite, that it almost lacked interest.

The Subaltern was elated. He refused to question the likelihood of such tales. He was hungry for just such cheering stories of success. And when he got them, he devoured them with avidity, without ever looking at them. The effect on him was bracing. It was glorious, he told himself, to have taken part in such happenings. The only cloud on his horizon was the fact that the chance to do distinguished acts had never come to him. The Regimental Colours never required saving under heavy fire, for the simple reason that they reposed safely at the depot. Neither did the Colonel, a most profitable person to rescue, ever get wounded in the open, and give an opportunity for gallant rescue work. He had never had a chance to "stick a Bosch." He had never drawn his sword in a triumphant charge, never blazed his revolver in a face, never twisted a bayonet on a body. It would require courage, he told himself, to admit these things when he was back again at home.

You must not laugh at the stories of the Machine-Gunner. He believed what he wanted to believe. Remember, too, that the Allies were then at the zenith of the greatest victory that was achieved in the first eighteen months of the war. The strategical ideas of the Machine-Gunner may have been faulty, but he has saved more lives with his guns than any doctor in the land.

At about eight o'clock in the morning, the Subaltern saw the Company in front twisting off the road, and forming up in "mass" in the open field. They were then in the centre of a large plateau, which offered an uninterrupted view of miles of flat country on every side. A rough "outpost" disposition, with which he was fortunately not sent, was detailed, and the news was spread that there was to be a halt of several hours.

The business of drying clothes, and cleaning up, instantly began. Ingrained soldierly cleanliness of the men was displayed. Without any order, and in spite of their weariness, whenever they were halted over an hour in the daylight—which had very seldom happened—they would immediately set about shaving, and cleaning themselves and their rifles. They shaved with the cold water, poured from their water-bottles into the lids of their canteens. There was a vast rubbing of bolts, and "pulling through" of barrels. An erstwhile barber in the Senior Subaltern's Platoon did tremendous business with a pair of scissors and a comb, his patrons being seated on an upturned ammunition-case.

They had not halted long before a "mail" came in. The Subaltern was not among the lucky few who received letters or small parcels. Not that he minded much. From whomever the letter might come, or in whatever vein it had been written, he admitted to himself that he would feel savage with it, and would have dismissed it as "hot air" if it were sympathetic, or as "hard-hearted" if it were anything else.

He wrote home on the now famous postcards that inform the addressee that, on such and such a date, the sender was alive and well. He felt very relieved that at last he had an opportunity to relieve the anxiety of the people at home.

The best part of the two hours was spent in "franking"—that is censoring—his men's letters. It was a very unwelcome task, and although he thoroughly appreciated the military necessity, he cordially hated being forced, as it were, to pry into their private affairs.

Meanwhile the wind had dried them, and the sun was high in the heavens. Rations arrived, and were distributed. The sun and the tea warmed them, and in the afternoon a little sleep was possible.

The Subaltern was aroused at about four o'clock, and the march was continued. The Senior Subaltern had received a box of Abdullas in the post, which he kindly shared with his two juniors. The cigarettes seemed enormously fat, and the tobacco extraordinarily pale. They had smoked nothing but the little "Caporal" French cigarettes—and not many of them—since their own supply had given out. They had said all along how much they longed for "decent English" cigarettes, and now they had got them they were not at all so sure that they liked them.

There was a Lance-Corporal in the Company who was not as generous to his fellows as the Senior Subaltern had been. He smoked the cigarettes he had been sent, persistently, and with obvious enjoyment. The men around him were hungry for a "whiff"; the sight of him calmly lighting a fresh "fag" at the stump of the old maddened them beyond endurance. At length one man could bear it no longer.

"Look at 'im, a'eatin' of 'em. Lor! give a thought to yer ruddy comrades, can't yer?"

They seemed to miss tobacco more poignantly than any other luxury.

A little later, sounds of great artillery bombardments rose up in front of them and on each side, but they could not yet see any signs of a fight, as they had not yet reached the edge of the plateau.

Further on, the road descended slightly, and a very little way ahead the Subaltern saw, for the first time, a Battery of heavy artillery at work. The whole affair seemed to him to be singularly peaceful. The men went to work in the same efficient and rapid way that they would have done in a machine-room. Their targets were, of course, invisible, and there was no attempt to cover the guns from sight, nor to protect them from hostile shells. He was surprised to see how comparatively slowly the gun recoiled after discharge. The noise was ear-splitting, terrific.

"There'll be some fun when the Transport comes along," said the Senior Subaltern, with unholy glee.

He was right: there probably would be a great deal of "fun." The Battery was not more than fifty yards from the road on the left, while on the right there was a drop, at an angle of at least sixty degrees, of twenty yards. He imagined the frightened horses careering madly down the slope, the carts and wagons bumping and crashing down upon them—the kicking, struggling heap below!

Then, just as it was growing dark, they reached the edge of the plateau, and the huge rolling valley of the Aisne swam before them in the purple twilight. The further heights were already wrapt up in darkness; and the ground, glowing green at their feet, merged in the distance to rich velvet patches of purple and brown. The river itself was hidden by the trees clustering round its banks, but they could guess its course, winding away for a score or so of miles to the east.

"What a beautiful scene," he said reverently.

The Senior Subaltern may, or may not, have appreciated the beauty of the scene. His eye was on the further heights.