36 
LAND & WATER 
June 7. 1917 
happened . more th.in nnre. T had many altercations but 
I alwav!-" satislie<l thfin or 1 w'uuMh't be hen- 'now. diiif 
or twice mv hur^c st()ii]»r<l ^\^■M\, Ihr.iwint; me lorward nn lui 
neck, and shieil at a tiark iii)ject ivin'< iTiDtiunK-ss nn ihcioad. 
1 peered down and saw it was a soldier fast asleep. 'I'lieV la\' 
everywhere as they had fallen out, sleeping like corpses. 
"I'm telling \ou all this so that you may understand what 
thetension <if that night was— antl remember there had been 
several nights like it before Le Cateau, and some of the men, 
as you'll hear in a moment.. were not so lucky as these were, 
but had got strayed far from the column and were wandering 
thnaigh hedges and ditdus. far away to our left with the 
(iermans on tlieir flanks. It was worse for them because they 
were away from the latteries, and it's wonderful liow the 
sight of a battery will i)ut heart into an infantry-man it 
makes him feel he's being looked after. I collected r(j)orts 
(mm practically every unit, though there was one derelict 
bat'tahon without itsO.C, and wiiat was stranger still, 
quite ignorant of what had hapjiened to him. 1 thi-n rode 
nliead of the cohunn to report to the (ieneral and found him 
in a'Cottage with the rest of his staff. A staff ofticer sleepily 
j>ointed to an inner room. I knocked ; there was no 
ansW'er. 1 gently opened tM^ door and saw the General in a 
chair with his head resting tipon his arms which were extended 
on the tal)le. He was fast asleij). and from a tallow candle 
burning limi)ly in a bottle the hot ^^rease dripped upon the 
back of his tiand and stuck there. 1 coughed loudly but the 
< ieneral slept on. Then I deliberately kicked over a chair. 
The (ieneral raised his head and stared dully at me as I 
saluted and made my report. Before I had fmished he was 
last asleep again. 
',' I could find no shelter of any kind for myself, and the men 
lay in the streets - many of thenrwithout overcoats — amid the 
rain which was now drizzluig steadily. They did.not even pile 
arms, every man slgpt with his rifle beside him, and of course 
no fires were lit. Each unit had been ordered to provide its 
own' out-posts— one or twu.ofhcers and from ten to twenty 
men posted on the high ground on eacji ^ide of the road. I 
lay down against a haystack- or was it a shock of. corn ? ■ I 
can't remember - - in a ^tlibblefield; but the night was 
so cold that, tired as I was, 1 could not sleep. So I got 
up and walked about and masticated bully beef to get 
SI ine warmth into me. 1 shall never forget that night 
the my.sterious silence^, broken only by the. steady hiss of 
the rain, the statuesque figures of the outposts, the recum- 
bent forms of the men, some of whom now and again turned 
and muttered in their sleep, and far away to the north the 
^are of burning homesteads lighting up the sky. At 4 a.m. 
the whole column got the order to move towards . We 
led and watered our horses, and every man in my battery 
found time to shave and was as spick and ^pan as though we 
> were (m parade. And the infantry marched off in column 
of fours in perfect step, singing " Tipperary " as though they 
hadn't a trouble in the world. Anu this you will remember 
■was after days and nights of marching and fighting with not 
more than a few hours' sleep on a pave street for a spring 
mattress. P'you know, I've come to the conclusion that the 
■JiTnglish soldier's always at his best when things are at their 
worst. There be three things that are too wonderful for me 
— the way of a Tommy in a hole, the way of a Tommy up a 
tree, and the way of a Tommy in the midst of a rearguard 
action. Selah ! . . . 
"Where was I ? Oh yes. Well now, my story really 
I _ begins where I personally leave off because it's concerned 
with the fortunes of the missing unit (or what was left of 
it), and their O.C, whom the night had swallowed up 
like the vasty deep. But I've had to tell you all this 
in order that you might realise what that night must 
have meant for them. Trying as it was for us it was much 
vyorse for them because, as I've said, they'd got hopelessly 
lost and were practically isolated away on our left in the 
direction of the Germans. It was only afterwards that I 
learnt what I'm going to tell you — never mind how ! They'd 
got away from the battlcjthe men being thrown into " artillery 
formation " to reduce as much as possible the risks of shrapnel, 
and somehow the file that some of them were following, led 
by their 0.("., got separated and they lost their connection 
with the main body. They halted at a village at dusk and 
snatched some sleep for • an . hour or two — all of them 
except the O.C. who was afraid.to go to sleep- as he had 
no one he could rely on to wake h«m up. He'd been 
walking arm in arm with his adjutant (before he lost 
sight of Inm) like two drunken men— the two of them having 
agreed on tliis as the likeliest way of keeping each other 
awake. That O.C. had been, if I recollect rightly, without 
sleep, for five nights — perhaps you know what tliat means. 
And he had no horse ; his horse had gone lame. Well, 
they marched more. or less throughout the night, steering 
south by the comp.iss, and fetched up about mid-day 
in a certain place of wliich we are hearing a good 
deal just„ now. There'd been much coming and going 
- (rf-our staff il^'^that^p^ac<•:^L)ut"-l♦^•.nfi^ll-tirue■:the d:< and his 
men got there everybod\- hail cltarcd out, for llic Huns 
were it]><>rt(<i in great sti:ing^i , in the neighbourhood, 
shells had been falhitg orr tlieirrij'ttt some distan<<' outsitle 
the town, and as they crawled ii1^i,?it a motor cyclist, hatless, 
h\ id, crouching over his machine^wnth the thiotile (.pened out 
for all he was worth, sliouted tij thiin that he'd betn chastd 
by Uhlans who had cut up a I'rench civil guard. Also other 
things — most of them unintelligible l)ut all of them bad. .Then 
he clisapp(\ired. The O.C. halted* his men in the station- 
yard and made inquiries aboiit tr'aihs. There was not a sign 
of a K.T.O. and no one in Ihe'Mtion except a distracted 
station-master who informed him that there wasn't so much 
. as a trolley left. A panic-strickerv French civilian rushed up, 
beckoned, pointed vaguely towarcis the rrorth-east, auii 
shouted " Allemands,' then ran hell for leather out of tiie 
deserted station-yai'd. 
" The O.C. was at his wits' end to know what to do. He 
told his men to stand easy while he wi-nt off to the mairie to 
find out how matters really stood. The maire, who was 
tearing up and down the room, running his hand through 
his beard, looked at him with eyes full ol terror. 
" ' Oh, man Dieu. c'est fmi.' hv cv'wd -.it the sight of the 
officer, and taking him by the arm he drew him towards lire door 
and begged him to clear out. 
".' But why? 'said the bewildered ofltcer, who could not 
understand why the sight of a British uniform should be so 
unwelcome. 
" ' Oh. nion Dieii ! :we are all undone if you stay. Go ! Go ! 
Leave us, I beg of you. The (iermans surround the, town. 
Hark ! ' The windows rattled in their frames as the thunder 
of distant artillery reached their ears. ' You do not 
.* imderstand, No ? .If the (iermans find you and your men here 
theyvvill destroy us all. You have heard what they have 
i\o\w in Belgiirm— yes ? Oh, «»)« />/t«, think of the "women 
and children. If tht-y find you here, they will say it is not 
" an undefended town" They will burn our roofs over our 
heads, they will shoot us, hitsbands and fatliers, against the 
wall and tlien— ah ! apres • Think of the women and little 
'children.' 
We will defend you,' said the officer with a confidence 
he drd not feel. 
. '■; You ! [ How many men have,you got ? ' shrieked the 
mayor. ' ' ""' ' ^^' 
■^ ' About two hundred,' said the officer. 
"'Two hundred! It is a ieat— line mauvaise plaisatiterie. 
The Germans — they are an Army Corps. ' 
" The officer went back to the station-yard. He looked 
at the men who lay sleeping on the cobbles. They hiid 
cast down their packs, and many of them had taken the 
boots off their blistered feet. ' They're done up sir,' said 
the sergeant-major, and it was pretty obvious. What was 
the O.C, to do ? It was doubtful whether the men were 
capable of marching out of the town or whether, if they were, 
they wei;e physically capable of putting up a fight when they 
got outside. On the other hand, if tl:ey remained under anns 
where they were, their presence would give the (iermans jirst the 
kind of excuse which, as you know, they are not slow to seize, 
an excuse for wreaking a fury of lust and slaughter upon 
the unoffending inhabitants the commanding ofiice. decided 
that the only thing to do was to wait until his men had slept off 
something of the deadly fatigue which drugged them like an 
opiate, and in the meanwhile Well, there's the rub. 
Now I'm not going to defend what he decided to do. No ! 
I'm not. There are several things he ought to have done 
first — he ought to have sent out a party to reconnoitre and 
discover where and in what strength the Germans really were. 
He ought never to have signed that paper, or, at any rate, 
he ought never to have put in those words about ' uncondi- 
tional surrender ' — but more of that in a moment. He ought, 
at the worst, to ha\'e sent out a flag of truce and put a bold 
face on it, and bluffed the Huns with talk of terms as though 
he were in great force. He ought to have done anything 
but what he did do. Still it's easy for me to say a"ll this 
after the event, sitting in a club arm-chair, after a good dinner 
and a nif'it between linen sheets. Oh yes ! Well, he 
ordered the N.CO.'s to fall the men in and he then began 
a short speech. .^He tojd the men there was no chance of escape 
and that to attampt to defend the town would merely provoke 
a massacre of the inhabitants when the Germans arrived. 
Then he asked, the men if arixMUriltVJf them would ' like'-- 
' lik^' mind you— to fight their^way .out. When an O.C. 
throws the reins on the neck of.l>|sowp men like that, well, 
things are in a pretty bad way— it^s-micommonlv fike abdica- 
tion. What could you expect? f^'The- men- stared at each 
other, not knowing what , to makf;. of it. ";Some , said ' Yes ' 
some.said " No.:,others said notiimg<it; all, "wondering what 
f 
was coming nex1?.v>_ 
{Continued on THigf 38\ 
