e that prevented
me from starting with the squadrons of the first line. And yet I had
to submit to regulations. The colonel was inflexible, and answered my
entreaties by quoting the inexorable rule: In every cavalry regiment
the sixth lieutenant in order of seniority must stay at the depot to
help the major and the captain of the 5th squadron. They must
assemble, equip, and train the reserve squadrons of the regiment.

I shall never forget what those days were to me. Days of overwhelming
work, when, in a tropical heat, I was busy from sunrise to sunset,
entering the names of thousands of men, registering the horses, giving
certificates, and providing food for the lot. It needed some skill to
find billets for them all; the horses were lodged in stables, riding
establishments and yards, the men in every corner and nook of the vast
district. It was tiresome work, and would have been almost impossible
but for the general goodwill and admirable discipline. But all the
time I was thinking of the fellows away in Belgium boldly
reconnoitring the masses of Germans and coming into contact with the
enemy.

At last, at eleven o'clock on the 28th of August, the colonel's
telegram came ordering me to go at once and replace my young friend,
Second-Lieutenant de C., seriously wounded whilst reconnoitring. At
six o'clock in the evening I had packed my food, strapped on my kit,
and got my horses into the train. I set off with a light heart, and my
fellow-officers of the Reserve and of the Territorials, who were still
at the depot, came to see me off.

But how slowly the train travelled, and what a long way off our little
garrison town in the west seemed to me when I thought of the firing
line out towards the north! I made up my mind to try to imitate my
faithful Wattrelot, who had been snoring in peace for ever so long. I
stretched myself on the golden straw and waited impatiently for the
dawn, dozing and dreaming.

At about eight o'clock in the morning the train stopped at the
concentration station of N. What a crowd, and yet what order and
precision in this formidable traffic! All the commissariat trains for
the army muster here before being sent off to different parts of the
Front. The numerous sidings were all covered with long rows of trucks.
In every direction engines getting up steam were panting and puffing.
In the middle of this hurly-burly men were on the move, some of them
calm, jaded and patient. These were the railwayme