th a
plenary belief in the powers of the little English force. A few days
later, while Commander Samson was on a reconnaissance near Armentieres,
he was stopped by an excited civilian in a motor-car who offered to
conduct him to a place where he might kill some Germans. The Germans, it
appeared, were from two to three thousand in number, with two batteries
of artillery, and were going from Lille to Douai. 'Personally', says Air
Commodore Samson, 'I thought about two thousand Germans rather a tough
proposition for four Englishmen and one unreliable old Maxim, and I
regretted that we could not carry out the slaughter he desired. He was
very crest-fallen, and said, "But I will come too".'

The motor-car work was daily gaining in importance; what was needed was
a stronger force and armoured cars. Two of the cars were fitted with
improvised armour made of boiler-plate at the _Forges et Chantiers de
France_, the big shipbuilding firm of Dunkirk, and application was made
to the home authorities for a larger force of marines and specially
designed armoured cars. The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Winston
Churchill) and the Director of the Air Department (Captain Murray
Sueter) were quick to support any enterprise that showed life and
promise; on the 8th of September there arrived a reinforcement of 250
marines under Major Armstrong, most of them reservists and pensioners,
but stout men when it came to a fight. Further, Wing Commander Samson
got into touch with Captain Goldsmith, of the General Headquarters
Intelligence Department, and, by his efforts, was put in control of the
gendarmes in the villages of the zone where he was operating. The
aeroplanes daily watched the movements of German troops along the roads,
and the motor-cars, assisted sometimes by the infantry, carried out
sweeps and drives, to surround parties of German horsemen or cyclists.
There were some fights. On the 13th of September there was a brush with
some German cavalry patrols, on the Albert road, just outside the town
of Doullens. 'We got out of the cars', says Air Commodore Samson, 'and
opened fire with rifles at about five hundred yards range. We hit five
of them. Three were killed, and one was picked up severely wounded. We
took him to a hospital in Doullens, where he died without recovering
consciousness. It rather made me feel a brute seeing this poor fellow
dying, and War seemed a beastly business. He was a rather half-starved
looking fellow, and l