r way, or at least
rode well past our turning. Finally, colder than we had ever been
before, we reached the Chateau at Gueschart. There we found a charming
and hospitable son of the house and a pleasantly adoring lad. With
their aid we piled the floor of the harness-room with straw, and those
of us who were not on duty slept finely.

From the dawn of the next morning we were working at top pressure right
through the day, keeping in touch with the brigades which were billeted
in villages several miles distant.

Late in the afternoon we discovered we were very short of petrol, so I
was sent off to Crecy in our famous captured car, with a requisition. We
arrived amidst cheers. I strode into the nearest garage and demanded 100
litres of petrol. It was humbly brought and placed in the car: then I
sent boys flying round the town for jam and bread and butter, and in the
meantime we entertained the crowd by showing them a German helmet. I
explained volubly that my bandaged fingers--there was an affair of
outposts with an ambulance near Serches--were the work of shrapnel, and
they nearly embraced me. A boy came back and said there was no jam, so
the daughter of the house went to her private cupboard and brought me
out two jars of jam she had made herself, and an enormous glass of wine.
We drove off amidst more cheers, to take the wrong road out of the town
in our great excitement.

The brigades moved that night; headquarters remained at Gueschart until
dawn, when the general started off in his car with two of us attendant.

Now before the war a motor-cyclist would consider himself ill-used if he
were forced to take a car's dust for a mile or so. Your despatch rider
was compelled to follow in the wake of a large and fast Daimler for
twenty-five miles, and at the end of it he did not know which was him
and which dust.

We came upon the 15th, shivering in the morning cold, and waiting for
some French motor-buses. Then we rushed on to St Pol, which was crammed
full of French transport, and on to Chateau Bryas. Until the other
despatch riders came up there was no rest for the two of us that had
accompanied the car. The roads, too, were blocked with refugees flying
south from Lille and men of military age who had been called up. Once
again we heard the distant sound of guns--for the first time since we
had been at the Chateau of Longpont.

At last we were relieved for an hour, and taking possession of a kitchen
we fried some po