"in the air," as large forces of the enemy were
reported coming round our right flank, and the firing on our left
front got more and more to the left, thus proving that the Bedfords
had been pushed back and were retiring _via_ Wasmes--as they had been
told to do if overwhelmed. Weatherby, who had cantered off to get
in touch with them, confirmed this; and as it was getting extremely
"hot" (shells) where we were, I gave the order to withdraw--only just
in time as it turned out.

The Dorsets formed a proper rear-guard and held off the enemy, who
were by this time trickling in large numbers into the town; but by
good luck the Germans seemed to funk coming on in formation, and by
the time we had got back to the foot of the steep hill they didn't
bother us any more except by occasional shells. To my extreme
annoyance (in one way) we found another track leading round the hill,
towards Warquignies, not marked on the map; so those two wretched
inhabitants had told us quite wrong, and we could have retired the
transport this way after all. Of course we took advantage of it, and
fell back slowly _via_ Warquignies on Blangies, where we arrived, with
very few casualties, about two.

Here we got orders at first to bivouac for the night, but hardly had
the men had time to cook a meal and eat it than we were ordered to
continue the retirement on Bavai St Waast, _via_ Athis. As we got on
to the main road here we found a large column of our own troops moving
down it, and there were German mounted patrols at a respectful
distance on both sides. We fired at them occasionally, and they
disappeared and then turned up again in twos and threes on the
skyline, evidently keeping touch with us.

Just beyond Athis we found the Norfolks, who had been fighting at
Elouges all the morning, and then we came across the sad little
remainder of the Cheshires--only about 200 left out of 891 who had
gone into action that morning near Elouges. It was horrible to hear of
this appalling loss. Shore was the only captain left, and he was in
command, with two or three subalterns only. His story was that his
company had been in reserve to the other three and had gone to occupy
a farmhouse as told, that he had seen the three companies extending to
his right, and then lost touch with them as they advanced rapidly over
the brow of the low rolling ground. There was very heavy firing all
along the line, and eventually a staff officer told him to fall back
to his