them. But General
MacDonough, however, squashed all that. Then one of my titles got me
into trouble. My first "Colonel's" set had been waiting all the year
to get something against me, and now they worked up a molehill to a
mountain. I had to go constantly to the War Office, and I was talked
to very severely. In fact, I was in black disgrace. My behaviour could
not have been worse, according to Intelligence (F), or whatever they
were then called at G.H.Q.

I was lunching with Maurice Baring at the "Ritz" one day, and he told
me McCudden was in London. I said I would like him to sit. "Well,
write and ask him," said Baring. "But," said I, "I don't know him."
"Right," said Baring, "I'll write to him." The thing was arranged, and
one morning I heard a cheery voice below and someone came bounding
upstairs, and before I saw him he shouted: "Hello, Orps! Have you a
ping-pong table here?" He was the little unknown boy at the 56th
Squadron with whom I used to play ping-pong only a few months before.
Now he was the great hero, Major McCudden, V.C., D.S.O., etc., and
well he wore his honours, and, like all great people, sat like a lamb.

The news one got in those days was terrible--one could not realise
it--it seemed utterly impossible. Peronne taken! Bapaume taken! The (p. 070)
Huns were back over the old Somme battlefields; they had taken
Pozieres; the great American stores there had gone; they were back
over the great mine of La Boisselle. Terrible! And the golden Virgin
had fallen from the Cathedral tower, and one remembered the old
prophecy, "When the Virgin of Albert falls from her tower the end of
the war is at hand," and now she was down in the dirt of the street.
Did it mean defeat? Amiens was being shelled, the Boche swarmed on the
heights of Villers-Bretonneux, and they could see clearly that great
landmark of Picardy, Amiens Cathedral.

The railroad from the North to Paris was smashed, and they very nearly
destroyed the great railway bridge near Etaples--great masses of
masonry were blown out of it--everything was bombed right back to the
sea. Then the Huns turned South. On they rushed--Montdidier shelled,
Clermont in danger, on they went to Soissons and Chateau Thierry. One
Sunday news came to the War Office that Paris had been bombed all day.
A few minutes later this was corrected to "Paris has been shelled all
day." It was awful! unbelievable! Paris shelled! Where had the Huns
got to? Was the prophecy true of