THE YPRES TIMES
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should be fighting in so inconvenient a place as a town, and the French cavalry
uniforms made me feel as if I was assisting at a pageant depicting some old-world
battle.
First a couple of French dragoons came galloping down the street, the horse
hair plumes of their helmets trailing in the wind, as if the devil were after them.
Then I remember seeing a few more line up behind a wall, their high khaki-
coloured helmets bobbing up and down whilst they fingered their tiny rifles
excitedly. Their led horses, in the yard of a near-by house, were kicking and
fidgeting round the horse holder, who kept peering round the corner in an
endeavour to see what was going on, in spite of the danger of the horses maiming
each other whilst he did so.
A sharp burst of rapid fire drew my attention to a few grey-clad figures run
ning across a gap between some houses 300 yards away. A few moments later came
the aggravating typewriter-like rattle of a machine gun.
But even then, in the very early days, the artillery were the spoil sports.
A brace of 75's close by in a garden were making a noise which seemed likely to
wring one's head round on one's shoulders every time they fired.
I think it was then that my dislike of high explosives, which increased with
the years, began.
During the long days of waiting for the British Army to come up into the line,
I began to make the acquaintance of the French Army. It was all very puzzling
at first, for it was hard to realize that these hordes of men in red trousers and
ill-fitting, flopping blue overcoats, who straggled down the roads in their thousands,
were really going to war. The first reaction of an Englishman was, I think, to
doubt the soldierly qualities of these untidy, and from our point of view ill-clad
men, who never kept step on the line of march. But gradually, as their appearance
became familiar and I had spoken to many of them individually, I began to like
and then to respect these hardy, strong, enthusiastic young men of France. They
did not know overmuch about soldiering,' they were abysmally ignorant of the
stopping-power of bullets; they had, more's the pity, only been taught shock
tactics, but they were brave and gay and determined one and all to crush the hated
militarism of Prussia, under whose shadow they had grown up.
Then the British appeared. I have never felt prouder in my life than when I
first saw our men in France. Unconcerned and businesslike, the battalions
marched as if going to war in a strange country were an everyday occurrence.
The men sang and whistled or chaffed: they cursed the pavé roads, but in their
hearts were delighted to think how much better were the roads at home.
No one could tell what the future held, but I knew as I watched them go by
that they would prove to be tough customers, professional soldiers who knew
their job, splendidly officered and magnificent shots one and all. And no hope
was ever more triumphantly justified than that of those who prayed that the British
Army would give a good account of itself in August, 1914.
It was at about this time, but before the B.E.F. had detrained, that I had an
exciting little adventure. I had gone forward a good many miles into country as
yet free from the enemy, save for odd cavalry patrols, to meet a civilian who was
to give me some information he had collected concerning the enemy. I was on
my way back in the rather clumsy limousine car I had been lent by the French
authorities, with a French soldier as chauffeur and another sitting beside him as
escort. We kept a sharp look-out, for we had heard that strong bodies of hostile
cavalry were reported to be in the neighbourhood.
Presently, from a hamlet which seemed deserted, a young man ran
