n several straw stacks--which
we carefully put together again next day--and covering ourselves up in
the straw.

I had, by the way, an extremely narrow escape from being killed that
night. I had been lying down just off the road, when it struck me that
I should find out more of what was happening and going to happen if I
went to the head of the camion column and interviewed the officer in
charge. It was a tramp of a mile or more through the 14th Brigade, and
I found out something of what I wanted; but when I returned to the
bivouac I heard that, not two minutes after I had started, a motor-bus
had swerved off the road and passed exactly over the place where my
head had been. It very nearly went over St Andre and Moulton-Barrett,
who were lying a few feet away, as it was. Of course the driver could
not see any one lying down in the dark.

_Oct. 10th._

Next morning we had breakfast at 7.30 in the field, and still the
buses had not returned. We waited in that place till 11 o'clock before
they turned up, and then clambered into them as quickly as we
could--twenty-two men to a bus, sixteen buses to 300 metres being the
allowance. Even then we had to leave about two battalions behind for a
third trip.

I got into the first bus--a very fast one,--and reached Dieval some
time before the rest of the Brigade; but there was no room in the town
for another Brigade, as it was already full of the 14th.

I went to see Rolt, and got into telephone communication with
Divisional Headquarters on the subject, and they gave me leave to
billet at La Thieuloye, one and a half miles back and off the road. So
W. and I walked back and turned the buses off there just as they were
arriving.

A curious sight were the hundreds, or even thousands, of French
civilians whom we met--all men of military age, whom the French Army
was sending away westwards out of Lille; for it was likely that Lille
would shortly be invested by the Germans, and they did not want this
large batch of recruits and reservists to be interned in Germany.

The rest of the Brigade--transport, horses, and all--rolled up by 6
P.M., the horses being very tired after their long night march.

From what I could gather German cavalry was trying to get round our
north-west flank, whilst a big fight was going on at Arras. Lille,
with a few Territorial battalions in it, was still holding out, but
was surrounded by the enemy. Hence the hurry. But we ought to have
plenty of troo