It was quite dark when the
rearguard hove in sight of the passing trains, and then, to make
matters thoroughly uncomfortable, some half-dozen waggons stuck firmly
in a snipe-bog, scarcely a mile from their destination.

[Illustration: Corporal Tierney and Chef Burst.]

It looked uncommonly as if the unfortunate rearguard would have to
bivouac in that miserable marsh. As everybody was pouring with
perspiration from their endeavours with the waggons, and as it was
beginning to freeze, while there was no chance of getting at
great-coats, blankets, or food unless the waggons came out, out they
jolly well had to come--and came. It was ten o'clock before the men
got anything to eat, and 11.30 p.m. before our arrangements for the
night were completed. Our invaluable French 'chef' had kept some hot
soup for the rearguard, and seldom was soup more appreciated than by
those famished and frozen warriors.

We now heard that we were going south, and going south by train, and
that at all events was something to look forward to. At least it was a
change--something to look forward to with anticipation; and certainly
it is something to look back upon with a certain amount of amusement,
but at the time that railway journey was certainly the reverse of
comfortable.

We could not get off as early as we expected to on the 29th. The first
train started all right, but owing to the amount of work to be done in
getting kit over a small drift that lay between our bivouac of the
night before and the station, the second train did not follow it till
3.30 p.m.

After this the difficulty of dispatch increased with each succeeding
train, until when it came to entraining reluctant horses and still
more reluctant mules practically in the dark, for there was no other
light but the dim glimmer of two candle-lamps, the task became
herculean, and required an infinity of patience and tact. The General
and his staff having gone by the first excursion, the task of bringing
along the remainder of the column devolved on Colonel Hicks, with
Captain Fetherstonhaugh as his staff officer. They did not complete
the entraining until the early hours of the 30th, and then only to
find the line blown up in front of them. The fact that no disaster
occurred here was owing to Colonel Hicks' determination not to try to
get through that night, as he clearly foresaw what actually took
place, and that there was nothing to prevent the enemy blowing up the
line.

It is n