hot and dusty, and our men and horses were glad of
the half-hour's halt, although the respite had only lasted so long
because the traffic on the main route had been too continuous for us to
turn on to it and reach the road fifty yards farther down along which
we had to continue. Remembering a lesson of the Mons retreat emphasised
by a Horse Artillery major lecturing at Larkhill--that his horses kept
their condition because every time there was a forced halt near a
village he despatched his gunners with the water-buckets--I had told my
groom to search around until he found water for my two horses. Then I
stood under the trees lining the main road and watched three battalions
of French infantry march past, moving north of the part of the front
our brigade had just left. They were older, smaller, more town-bred
French soldiers than those we had seen during the two previous days,
more spectacles among them, and a more abstracted expression. The
thought came to me that here must be last-line reserves. Up on the
steep hills that overlooked the railway siding bearded French troops
were deepening trenches and strengthening barbed wire.

3 P.M.: We were anxious to get on now, and longed for a couple of City
of London traffic policemen to stand in majestic and impartial control
of these road junctions. The colonel and Major Bullivant, after
expostulating five minutes with a French major, had got our leading
battery across. Then the long line of traffic on the main route
resumed its apparently endless flow. An R.A.M.C. captain came out and
stood by as I stationed myself opposite the road we wanted our three
remaining batteries to turn down, watching to take quick advantage of
the G in the first possible GAP. "Pretty lively here last night,"
volunteered the R.A.M.C. captain. "General scramble to get out, and
some unusual sights. There was a big ordnance store, and they hadn't
enough lorries to get the stuff away, so they handed out all manner of
goods to prevent them being wasted. The men got pretty well _carte
blanche_ in blankets, boots, and puttees, and you should have seen them
carting off officers' shirts and underclothing. There was a lot of
champagne going begging too, and hundreds of bottles were smashed to
make sure the men had no chance of getting blind. And there was an old
sapper colonel who made it his business to get hold of the stragglers.
He kept at it about six hours, and bunged scores of wanderers into a
prisoner