sets), who
had been sent ahead from Belfast, and who gave us orders to detrain at
Le Cateau, a few miles farther on. I must say that all these
disembarking and training arrangements were extraordinarily well done,
and reflected great credit on the Allied staffs combined. No hitch, no
fuss, no worry, everybody got their orders in time, and all necessary
arrangements had been carefully thought out beforehand.

[Footnote 5: Hyslop was very severely wounded six days
afterwards and taken prisoner, but exchanged later on.]

We arrived at Le Cateau at 3.10 P.M., and detrained in half an hour,
baggage and all. The battalions marched off to their billets,--Dorsets
and Headquarters to Ors, the other three battalions to Pommereuil:
nice clean little villages both of them.

When about halfway out to Ors--I was riding on ahead of the Brigade
with only Weatherby--we were met by a motor bikist with a cypher
telegram for me. This stumped us completely, as, not yet having
reported to the Division, we had not yet received the local field
cypher-word; so, seeing a car approaching with some "brass hats" in
it, I rode across the road and stopped it, with a view to getting the
key. To my horror, Sir John French and Sir A. Murray descended from
the car and demanded to know why I had stopped them. I explained and
apologised, and they were very pleasant about it; but on looking at
the wire they said that I could disregard it, as they knew what it
was about, and it was of no particular importance by this time; so we
pursued our way in peace.

The billeting had already been done for us by our (5th) Divisional
Staff, and we found no difficulty in shaking down.

I was billeted on a small elderly lady of the name of Madame W----,
who was kindness itself, and placed herself and her house at our
disposal; but I regret to say that when our men, in search of
firewood, picked up some old bits of plank lying about in the garden,
she at first made a shocking fuss, tried to make out that it was a
whole timber stack of new wood, and demanded fifty francs
compensation. She eventually took two francs and was quite content.

Here it was that Saint Andre joined us, having been cast off by the
5th Divisional Staff at Landrecies as a superfluous interpreter.
Looking like an ordinary French subaltern with a pince-nez, he was in
fact a Protestant pastor from Tours, son of the Vicomte de Saint
Andre, very intelligent and "cultured," with a gr