dy very tired though
the sun had not been up more than an hour or two, and sturdy young
mothers carrying an extraordinary quantity of household stuff, trooped
along, all of them anxiously asking how far off the Germans were, and
whether we could hold them off, or whether they would all be killed by
them,--it was a piteous sight. We warned all the people who were still
in their cottages to stay there and not to run away, as their houses
would only be pillaged if they were not there, but I fear that few
took our advice.

It seemed a very long march that day, down the perfectly straight road
skirting the Mormal forest and on to Le Cateau. It was, as a matter of
fact, only a little over twenty miles, but the hot day, with very
little food, was most trying for the men. We had one good rest at
Englefontaine, where we bought a lot of food--bread and cheese, and
apples and plums, and a little meat--but it was not much. The rest of
the road was bare and hot, leading over down-like country past the
town of Le Cateau, and on to the heights to the west of it. Many
aeroplanes, British, French, and German, were skimming about, and
numerous bodies of French cavalry could be seen moving about the downs
and the roads in the rear.

We had received orders on the road to occupy part of an entrenched
position to the west of Le Cateau, and Weatherby and I rode ahead to
look at it and apportion it off as the battalions came up. The
trenches, we considered, were quite well sited. They were about 3 feet
deep, and had been dug by the inhabitants under, I think, French
supervision; but, judging by our subsequent experience, they were
nothing like deep enough and placed on much too exposed ground; and
the artillery pits were far too close up--though correct according to
the then text-books.

I put a few men into the trenches as an observing line, and sent the
commanding officers round to study them in case we had to hold them in
force on the morrow, and bivouacked the rest of the Brigade half a
mile behind them. Although we seemed to have done a good day's work
already, it was then only about 3 P.M., for we had started about 3.30
A.M. We got a good deal more food--bully beef and biscuits--here,
besides a cart-load of very smelly cheeses and some hams and
vegetables and fresh bread, and the men got their stomachs fairly full
by sundown.

The 13th Brigade came in a bit later and formed up on our right, but
the 14th Brigade, who had been doing