y hour to let us in, and that there were
no servants in the establishment at all except the old gardener and a
nurse.

Our movements were still by way of being kept a dead secret, so we
went off in the afternoon at 6 P.M., reinforced now by some divisional
cavalry and divisional cyclists. The road, in the dark, was an
extremely complicated one, as it involved about twenty turnings and
movement along narrow lanes with high hedges and big trees, making it
quite impossible to see for more than a few yards. So I took the
guiding of the column into my own hands, and distributed the rest of
my staff along it to see that the different units did not miss the way
and kept well closed up. The result was good, and after 5 hours march,
_via_ Agenvilliers and Gueschard, we reached the little village of
Boufflers about 11 P.M. Here, at an odd little Nouvel Art "Chateau"--or
rather small country house, empty of its owners--belonging to M.
Sagebien, Prefet de Niort, we of the Brigade staff put up, the rest of
the command being billeted in the tiny villages lining each bank of
the tiny stream near--I have forgotten its name.

_Oct. 9th._

It was a nice sunny day on the morrow, and we got our orders by midday
that we were to move off at 2 P.M. We wrote out Brigade orders and
prepared to start, when suddenly post-haste came some orders
cancelling these, and telling us that we were to drop our transport
and be moved off at once in a series of motor-buses to a place called
Dieval.

And then began a lovely jumble, which resulted (not our own fault) in
getting to Dieval rather later than we should have done had we trusted
to our own unaided powers of locomotion.

We moved off at 2 P.M., only taking blanket-waggons which were to dump
blankets and supplies into the buses. These were to have turned up on
the Haravesnes-Fillievres road at 7 P.M.; in any case it would have
been a complicated job getting into them in the dark, but they did not
arrive till midnight, owing to some mechanical breakdowns in the
column. The first lot of "camions" were to have taken six
battalions--_i.e._, the 14th Brigade, which was just ahead of us, and
half of the 15th Brigade. But when they did arrive, there were only
enough for three and three-quarter battalions; so we bivouacked in
more or less peace by the roadside until this bunch had moved off and
returned from Dieval to fetch us. Horribly cold it was too, and we
only kept moderately warm by pulling dow