all sorts of things in the
waggons--food and corn, to which I allowed our men to help themselves,
for our horses were short of oats and our men of rations, and some of
the tinned meats, "gulasch" and "blutwurst," were quite excellent and
savoury, much more so than our everlasting bully beef. Other waggons
were full of all sorts of loot--cases of liqueur and wine, musical
instruments, household goods, clothing, bedding, &c., trinkets,
clocks, ribbons, and an infinite variety of knick-knacks, many of
which one would hardly have thought worth taking. But the German is a
robber at heart, and takes everything he can lay his hands on. There
was also a first-rate motor-car, damaged, by the side of the road, and
in it were a General's orders and decorations, and 100 rifle
cartridges (Mauser) with soft-nosed bullets. To make certain of this I
kept one of the cartridges and gave it to Sir C. Fergusson. I think
these were about the only things (besides food) which we took from
the whole convoy, though many of the other things would have been well
worth taking. The men were very good, and did not attempt even to
leave the ranks till allowed by me to take the corn and food.

A short way on was the dirty village of Chezy, and here we found a
heap of cavalry and many of the 3rd Division. So we branched off to
the left in a frightfully heavy ten minutes' shower, and marched away
to St Quentin--marked as a village, but really only a farmhouse in a
big wood. As we approached the wood Headlam's guns began to shell it
in order to clear it of possible hostile troops, and continued until I
sent back to say that the shells were preventing us from going on;
then he eased off.

We halted near St Quentin for half an hour, and then came a message to
say we were to billet there. It was impossible to billet a whole
brigade in one farmhouse, and that none too large. So we told off
different fields for the battalions to bivouac in, and occupied the
farm ourselves, first sending out cyclists to clear the wood, as there
were rumoured to be parties of Uhlans in it.

It was a grubby farm with not much water, but we made the best of it,
and settled down for the night. A starved-looking priest was also
sleeping there, and he told me his story.

He and a fellow-priest, an Aumonier from Paris, had been on their way
to join the French unit to which they had been allotted for ambulance
purposes, when they fell into German hands and were treated as
prison