so stupid as to suppose for a moment that you English
have retreated here to amuse yourselves, or that you have dragged your
artillery up the hill behind me just to exercise your horses or to give
your gunners a pretty promenade."

He threw back his head and laughed aloud for the first time, and I felt
better.

"Precautions do not always mean a battle, you know"; and as he rose to
his feet he called my attention to a hole in his coat, saying, "It was a
miracle that I came through Saint-Quentin with a whole skin. The
bullets simply rained about me. It was pouring--I had on a
mackintosh--which made me conspicuous as an officer, if my height had
not exposed me. Every German regiment carries a number of sharpshooters
whose business is to pick off the officers. However, it was evidently
not my hour."

As we walked out to the gate I asked him if there was anything else I
could do for him.

"Do you think," he replied, "that you could get me a couple of fresh
eggs at half-past seven and let me have a cold wash-up?"

"Well, rather," I answered, and he rode away.

As soon as he was gone one of the picket called from the road to know if
they could have "water and wash."

I told them of course they could--to come right in.

He said that they could not do that, but that if they could have water
at the gate--and I did not mind--they could wash up in relays in the
road. So Pere came and drew buckets and buckets of water, and you never
saw such a stripping and such a slopping, as they washed and shaved--and
with such dispatch. They had just got through, luckily, when, at about
half-past six, the captain rode hurriedly down the hill again. He
carried a slip of white paper in his hand, which he seemed intent on
deciphering.

As I met him at the gate he said:--

"Sorry I shall miss those eggs--I've orders to move east," and he began
to round up his men.

I foolishly asked him why. I felt as if I were losing a friend.

"Orders," he answered. Then he put the slip of paper into his pocket,
and leaning down he said:--

"Before I go I am going to ask you to let my corporal pull down your
flags. You may think it cowardly. I think it prudent. They can be
seen a long way. It is silly to wave a red flag at a bull. Any
needless display of bravado on your part would be equally foolish."

So the corporal climbed up and pulled down the big flags, and together
we marched them off to the stable. When I returned to the g