n
theirs--wondered whether after all their sufferings and struggles they
would reach the town of Amiens and find safety there.

It was obvious to me that there was a thrill of uneasiness in the
military machine operating in the district. Troops were being hurried
up in a north-westerly direction. A regiment of Algerians came
swinging along the road. The sight of the Turcos put some heart into
the fugitives. Those brown faces were laughing like children at the
prospect of a fight. They waved their hands with the curious Arab
gesture of salute, and shuffled along merrily with their rifles slung
behind their backs. Military motor-cars carrying little parties of French
officers swept down the roads, and then there were no more
battalions but only stragglers, and hurrying fugitives driving along in
farmers' carts, packed with household goods, in two-wheeled gigs,
overburdened with women and children, riding on bicycles, with
parcels tied to the saddles, or trudging wearily and anxiously along,
away from the fear where the blood-red sun was setting over France.
It was pitiful to see the children clinging to the women's skirts along
that road of panic, and pitiful but fine, to see the courage of those
women. Then night fell and darkness came across the fields of
France, and through the darkness many grim shadows of war,
looming up against one's soul.

There was une affaire des patrouilles--what the British soldier calls a
"scrap"--along the road at Albert, between Amiens and Cambrai. A
party of German Uhlans, spreading out from a strong force at
Cambrai itself, had been engaged by the French Territorials, and after
some sharp fighting had retired, leaving several dead horses in the
dust and a few huddled forms from which the French soldiers had
taken burnished helmets and trophies to their women folk.

That was on Friday night of August 28. The real fighting was taking
place fifteen kilometres further along the road, at a place called
Bapeaume. All day on Friday there was very heavy fighting here on
the left centre, and a victory was announced by the French Ministry of
War.

I did not see the victory. I saw only the retreat of some of the French
forces engaged in the battle.

It was a few minutes before midnight on that Friday, when they came
back along the road to Amiens, crawling back slowly in a long, dismal
trail, with ambulance wagons laden with dead and dying, with hay-
carts piled high with saddles and accoutreme