f relief, were apparent. There was no alternative but
to carry on day after day in continuous fighting retreat with very small
numbers spread over a wide area.

Over the fields and meadows roamed farm cattle, some bleeding and
running wildly about bellowing with fear. Cows moaned in agony for the
dire need of milking, but who was there to do it? In the farms were
styes full of half-starved pigs, grunting and groaning with hideous
effect. They were turned loose to fend for themselves, ran rampant over
the carefully sown ground and growing potatoes--the sad results of
months of painstaking effort. Fowls fluttered and screamed with wild
flapping wings, men seized the eggs and drank them down in a fierce
famished hunger.

Along all the roads for miles streamed a piteous spectacle of old women,
children and dogs. Before them a plaintive little barrow of belongings,
on the backs of the men small red bundles tied hastily together.
Wrinkled old men limped laboriously along on heavy sticks ... sometimes
by the wayside a white-faced, white-haired old dame sat exhausted,
crouching in fear over a poor little bundle; alone, trembling, deserted.
The whine of the bullets crept nearer and troops began to pass.

"'Ere, mother, can't you get on?" Not comprehending the words but fully
grasping the meaning, the unhappy old head was shaken. A passing
ambulance was stopped and the frail old form gently placed in with the
wounded--sometimes. There was not always an ambulance. Many a wrinkled,
bent old man or woman, shrinking in fear by the roadside, were left in
dire desolation to the mercy of their foe.

Some few old folks stood by their homes to the last, until the khaki
rows were far across the fields away, and shot whistling about the eaves
of the old thatched roof farm ... dotted here and there on their grass
land a still Britisher kept them company until the Germans passed over
and onward, collected the bodies, buried them.

Unshaven, tattered and unwashed, Stumpy, lamed in the left foot, potted
shot after shot at each retirement, aiming at no one target, but, as he
observed. "Even if I don't 'it 'im, I might puncture 'is bloomin' rum
ration."

"But wot are you aimin' at?"

"Nothin'. Just 'igh in the air. Like--that there. Who knows: why it
might just ketch ole Kaiser Bill in the bloomin' belly if 'e came up
close 'nough."

Uncouth, uncultured, rough of manner, of speech. Good-natured, full of
courage, humour. Stumpy ... short