the time of starting. Fortunately his
horses and his groom had turned up. The traffic down the main street,
with its old-fashioned plaster houses, its squat green doors, and the
Mairie with its railed double-stone steps, was getting more congested.
Infantry transport and French heavy guns were quickening their pace as
they came through. The inhabitants were moving out in earnest now, not
hurriedly, but losing no time. A group of hatless women stood
haranguing on the Mairie steps; a good-looking girl, wearing high heels
and bangles, unloaded a barrow-load of household goods into a van the
Maire had provided, and hastened home with the barrow to fill it again;
a sweet-faced old dame, sightless, bent with rheumatism, pathetic in
her helpless resignation, sat on a wicker-chair outside her doorway,
waiting for a farm cart to take her away: by her side, a wide-eyed
solemn-faced little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, and trying
bravely not to cry.

10.15 A.M.: The colonel met me in the street; he had just come from
seeing the C.R.A. again. "Better tell B and D Batteries to move off at
once, B leading. Headquarters can start as well. It will be best to get
out of this place as quickly as possible. The enemy is coming on fast,
and there will be an awkward crush shortly."

11 A.M.: The Boche machine-guns could be heard now as plainly as if
they were fighting along the canal banks. B Battery had marched out
with their waggons, Headquarters behind them. I stood with the colonel
in the square to watch the whole brigade go through. Young Bushman had
ridden off towards the canal to seek news of C Battery.

And now the first enemy shell: a swishing rush of air and a vicious
crack--a 4.2 H.V. It fell two streets from us. Another and another
followed. Shouts from behind! The drivers spurred their horses to a
trot. Clouds of dust rose. Odd civilians alternately cowered against
the wall and ran panting for the open country, making frightened cries
as each shell came over. A butcher's cart and a loaded market cart got
swept into the hurrying military traffic.

"I don't like this," muttered the colonel, frowning. "It would be
stupid to have a panic."

On the Mairie steps I could see M. le Maire ringing a hand-bell and
shouting some sort of proclamation. With a certain dignity, and
certainly with little apparent recognition that shells were falling
close, he descended the steps and strode along the street and through
the square, all