elled
us to withdraw and readjust our line. This second line was not so
defensible as the first. Until we were relieved the Germans battered at
it with gunnery all day and attacks all night. How we managed to hold it
is utterly beyond my understanding. The men were dog-tired. Few of the
old officers were left, and they were "done to the world." Never did the
Fighting Fifth more deserve the name. It fought dully and instinctively,
like a boxer who, after receiving heavy punishment, just manages to keep
himself from being knocked out until the call of time.

Yet, when they had dragged themselves wearily and blindly out of the
trenches, the fighting men of the Fighting Fifth were given but a day's
rest or two before the 15th and two battalions of the 13th were sent to
Hooge, and the remainder to hold sectors of the line farther south. Can
you wonder that we despatch riders, in comparative safety behind the
line, did all we could to help the most glorious and amazing infantry
that the world has ever seen?[21] And when you praise the deeds of Ypres
of the First Corps, who had experienced no La Bassee, spare a word for
the men of the Fighting Fifth who thought they could fight no more and
yet fought.

A few days after I had returned from the 15th Brigade I was sent out to
the 14th. I found them at the Estaminet de l'Epinette on the
Bethune-Richebourg road. Headquarters had been compelled to shift,
hastily enough, from the Estaminet de La Bombe on the La Bassee-Estaires
road. The estaminet had been shelled to destruction half an hour after
the Brigade had moved. The Estaminet de l'Epinette was filthy and small.
I slept in a stinking barn, half-full of dirty straw, and rose with the
sun for the discomfort of it.

Opposite the estaminet a road goes to Festubert. At the corner there is
a cluster of dishevelled houses. I sat at the door and wrote letters,
and looked for what might come to pass. In the early dawn the poplars
alongside the highway were grey and dull. There was mist on the road;
the leaves that lay thick were black. Then as the sun rose higher the
poplars began to glisten and the mist rolled away, and the leaves were
red and brown.

An old woman came up the road and prayed the sentry to let her pass. He
could not understand her and called to me. She told me that her family
were in the house at the corner fifty yards distant. I replied that she
could not go to them--that they, if they were content not to return,