rs was quartered, making out the orders.

A "Brigade Area" command was allotted to me, including, besides my own
Brigade, the 8th Brigade R.F.A. (howitzers), 59th Co. R.E., 15th Field
Ambulance, and 4th Co. of 5th Div. Train.

_Oct. 7th._

Then off at 5 A.M. next morning, ourselves for Pont Ste Maxence.
Major Vandeleur of the Scottish Rifles had just arrived to take
command of the Cheshires, who had had nothing but a captain to command
them since Lt.-Col. Boger was taken prisoner on the 24th August. He
seemed to me a first-rate sensible fellow, but we were not destined to
keep him for long.

As the Brigade was still rather short of socks, I bought as many as I
could here for the men, but not many were available. It was a nice
little town with a blown-up stone bridge, but the French R.E. had
already constructed another of wood.

The French entraining orders are that all troops have to be at the
station four blessed hours before the train starts, so as to give time
to load up properly. We thus arrived at 8, and did not start till 12;
but the actual entraining of the Cheshires--the only battalion with
Brigade Headquarters--took only one hour and a quarter,--not bad at
all considering that there were no ramps or decent accessories, and
all the vehicles had to be man-handled into the trucks.

There were two sorts of trains--one mostly for men, the other mostly
for horses and vehicles; but although they were very long--thirty-four
to forty cars if I remember right--they were not quite long enough for
us, and several men and vehicles had to be left behind and brought on
by other trains, resulting in slight incompleteness for a few days.

We rapidly reached Creil, where we were to get our final orders. What
on earth would our destination be? Rumour had it that we should go to
Calais, or even to Bruges; but we had no such journey after all, for
we were only intended to go to Abbeville as it turned out--rather a
disappointment, as we hoped it would be further afield.

Abbeville--a two hours' journey as a rule in peace time--was not
reached till 8 P.M., although we were due there at 6.30 P.M. We halted
by the way, for half an hour or more, at Amiens, where we made the
acquaintance of a cheery crowd of "Fusiliers Marins," sturdy naval
reservists from Normandy and Brittany, who covered themselves with
glory later on amid the Belgian dunes.

_Oct. 8th._

We were not allowed to detrain at Abbeville till 9.30 P.M., as t