tact to the
village that Division had fixed as our destination. And as we had now
become a non-fighting body, a brigade of Field Artillery without guns,
it was more than ever our business to get out of the way.

Our men found room for some of the aged civilians in motor-lorries and
G.S. waggons; but I shall always remember one silver-haired dame who
refused to be separated from the wheel-barrow heaped up with her
belongings, which she was pushing to a place seven miles away. For some
reason she would not allow a gunner to wheel the barrow for her. Poor
obstinate old soul! I hope she got away; if she didn't, I trust the
Boche was merciful.

The colonel and I rode through a forest in order to catch up the
batteries. As we emerged from the wood we came upon five brigades of
cavalry--three French and two British--fresh as paint, magnificently
mounted, ready and waiting. "The most cheering sight we've seen this
morning," remarked the colonel.

We came up with C Battery, and rode at their head. Despite the spurt to
cross the canal, their turn-out was smart and soldierly, and there was
satisfaction in the colonel's quick, comprehensive glance. Through
Pontoise, another village from which the inhabitants had fled the day
before, and past the outskirts of Noyon, with its grey cathedral and
quaint tower. The evacuation here had been frantic, and we heard
stories of pillage and looting and of drunken men--not, one is glad to
say it, British soldiers. In all that galling, muddling week I did not
see a single drunken soldier. As we were near a considerable town, I
gave my groom twenty francs, and told him to buy what food he could: we
might be very short by nightfall. He returned with some sardines, some
tinned tunny fish, and a few biscuits, the sardines costing five francs
a small tin. At one cross-road a dozen American Red Cross cars were
drawn up, and I recall the alacrity of a middle-aged American doctor,
wearing gold pince-nez, in hopping off his ambulance and snapshotting
the colonel at the head of the battery. I wondered bitterly whether
that photograph would subsequently be published under the heading,
"British Artillery in Retreat."

2.30 P.M.: The four batteries were now ranged alongside a railway
siding at a point where the road by which we had journeyed joined the
main road to Compiegne. For several hours this great traffic artery had
been packed with troops and transport moving to and from the
battle-front. It was