was
in reserve far back at St.-Pol and Pernes; and the Indian Cavalry Corps
under General Remington was at Doullens; "to be in readiness," wrote Sir
John French, "to co-operate with the French cavalry in exploiting any
success which might be attained by the French and British forces."...
Oh, wonderful optimism! In that Black Country of France, scattered with
mining villages in which every house was a machine-gun fort, with slag
heaps and pit-heads which were formidable redoubts, with trenches and
barbed wire and brick-stacks, and quarries, organized for defense in
siege-warfare, cavalry might as well have ridden through hell with hope
of "exploiting" success... "Plans for effective co-operation were fully
arranged between the cavalry commanders of both armies," wrote our
Commander-in-Chief in his despatch. I can imagine those gallant old
gentlemen devising their plans, with grave courtesy, over large maps,
and A. D. C.'s clicking heels in attendance, and an air of immense
wisdom and most cheerful assurance governing the proceedings in the
salon of a French chateau. .. The 3d Cavalry Division, less one brigade,
was assigned to the First Army as a reserve, and moved into the area of
the 4th Corps on the 2lst and 22d of September.

II

The movements of troops and the preparations for big events revealed
to every British soldier in France the "secret" of the coming battle.
Casualty clearing-stations were ordered to make ready for big numbers of
wounded. That was always one of the first signs of approaching massacre.
Vast quantities of shells were being brought up to the rail-heads and
stacked in the "dumps." They were the first-fruit of the speeding up
of munition-factories at home after the public outcry against shell
shortage and the lack of high explosives. Well, at last the guns would
not be starved. There was enough high-explosive force available to blast
the German trenches off the map. So it seemed to our innocence--though
years afterward we knew that no bombardment would destroy all earthworks
such as Germans made, and that always machine-guns would slash our
infantry advancing over the chaos of mangled ground.

Behind our lines in France, in scores of villages where our men were
quartered, there was a sense of impending fate. Soldiers of the New Army
knew that in a little while the lessons they had learned in the School
of Courage would be put to a more frightful test than that of holding
trenches in sta