had taken up its quarters in a farm situated in the centre
of a very labyrinth of country roads. But I had four hours' sleep when I
got there, while the others were up all the night.

There was no hurry in the morning. The orders were to join the Division
at a bridge just outside Bethune, a point which they could not possibly
reach before ten. So I got up late and had a glorious meal of soup,
omelette, and fruit in the town, waited on by a most excellent flapper
who wanted to know everything about everything. I reported at the Signal
Office, then occupying the lodge of the town cemetery, and was sent off
to catch the Devons. At the village where I waited for them I found some
Cuirassiers, genial fellows; but living helios in the burning sun. When
I returned the Division had moved along the north bank of the Canal to
Beuvry Station. The post picked us up, and in the joyous possession of
two parcels and some letters I unpacked my kit. We all settled down on
some moderately clean straw in the waiting-room of the station, and
there we remained for three full weeks.

Men talk of the battle of Ypres[15] as the finest achievement of the
British Army. There was one brigade there that had a past. It had fought
at Mons and Le Cateau, and then plugged away cheerfully through the
Retreat and the Advance. What was left of it had fought stiffly on the
Aisne. Some hard marching, a train journey, more hard marching, and it
was thrown into action at La Bassee. There it fought itself to a
standstill. It was attacked and attacked until, shattered, it was
driven back one wild night. It was rallied, and turning on the enemy
held them. More hard marching--a couple of days' rest, and it staggered
into action at Ypres, and somehow--no one knows how--it held its bit of
line. A brigade called by the same name, consisting of the same
regiments, commanded by the same general, but containing scarce a man of
those who had come out in August, marched very proudly away from Ypres
and went--not to rest--but to hold another bit of the line.

And this brigade was not the Guards Brigade. There were no picked men in
the brigade. It contained just four ordinary regiments of the line--the
Norfolks, the Bedfords, the Cheshires, and the Dorsets. What the 15th
Brigade did, other brigades have done.

Now little has been heard of this fighting round La Bassee in October,
so I wish I could tell you about it in more detail than I can. To my
thinking it was the