led an order explaining the situation, and instructing all
battery waggon lines to move towards Varesnes at once. I knew that in
view of the 6.30 A.M. relief by the --rd Brigade, horses would be sent
up for the officers and men at the guns, and it was possible that the
guns would now be brought back from the Caillouel ridge before that
time. The Boche was clearly coming on once more.

Cycle orderlies sped away with the notes, and I was sending a signaller
on a cycle to tell the sentry posted at Grandru to rejoin us, when I
discovered that the brigade clerk had not yet turned up. I told the
signaller to send him along as well.

Two of the orderlies returned and reported that B and D Batteries had
received my instructions and had started. With the return of the next
orderly I explained where we were to go to the sergeant-major, and told
him to move off. I would come along behind with the others.

To my astonishment the signaller and the sentry came back without the
brigade clerk. "Can't find him anywhere, sir," said the signaller.
"Didn't you see him while you were there?" I asked the orderly who had
been doing sentry. "No, sir. I saw no lights in that house where the
office was, and there's no one there now."

This was something unexpected, not to say perturbing. I turned to one
of the cycle orderlies who stood by. "Go back and make a thorough
search for Briercliffe. Don't come back until you are satisfied he's
not in the village. I'll wait here. You others, except one cyclist, go
on and catch up the column."

A quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, half an hour! The orderly
returned alone. "I can't find Briercliffe, sir. I've been into every
house in Grandru. He's not there."

I couldn't understand it. The amazingly conscientious, thoroughly
correct, highly efficient Briercliffe to be missing. "I can't wait any
longer," I said, mounting my horse. "He's quite wide awake and should
be all right. We'll get on."

X. THE SCRAMBLE AT VARESNES

4 A.M.: For the best part of a mile my groom and I had the moonlit road
to ourselves. We passed at the walk through the stone-flagged streets
of Baboeuf, our horses' hoofs making clattering echoes in what might
have been a dead city. Along the whole length of the tortuous main
street were only two indications that there was life behind the closed
doors and fastened shutters. Two French soldiers, leaning against a
wall and talking, moved away as we rode up; then a door ban