ld get hold of on the way (by no means as much as I could have
drunk!) and though I was jolly tired I was as fresh as anybody else, and
a good deal fresher than the majority, as you will see later. Well,
after the first halt the falling out became dreadful; it was almost
impossible for us to cope with the number of chits required; crowds must
have been without chits at all. The whole roadside became one mass of
exhausted men lying full length. Some were very bad indeed, some had
sunstroke, some were sick, more than one were dying. At one time the
padre and I were a long way behind, attending to these men. We hurried
on to catch up the Battalion. The Transport, under Humfrey, were just
behind the Battalion, so we followed along the Transport. When we got to
the front end of it we saw nothing beyond! 'Where is the Battalion?' I
asked Humfrey. He informed me that he had lost it. The Adjutant had, at
the last turning, sent the Battalion one way and the Transport another;
and he (Humfrey) had not the faintest idea where he was to go to! So he
halted and got out a map. Then the Medical Officer (Adam) arrived on the
scene too. We told him that the Battalion had disappeared. So we
(Newman, Adam, Humfrey, and myself) sat down for about five minutes and
discussed the situation. It struck us as being rather comical, though we
wished that we were at the end of our journey instead of in a strange
village and ignorant of which way we were to go. Humfrey decided to take
his Transport the same way as the remainder of the Brigade Transport had
gone; so we went on with him! We went across some very open country. The
sun was simply burning down upon us. I felt very exhausted now; but I
can stick almost anything in the way of a route march; no route march
could, in my opinion, be as bad as that memorable Kidlington-Yarnton
route march in March, 1916. The difficulty then was fatigue caused by
the march through thick, soft slushy snow when vaccination was just at
its worst; the difficulty this time was fatigue and thirst caused by the
heat of a French summer. I admit that this route march yesterday was a
stern test of endurance; but if I could stick the Kidlington-Yarnton
stunt I could stick this, and I did stick this all the way, which very
few others did! The trail which we left behind us was a sight to be
seen: men, rifles, equipment, riderless horses all over; the Retreat
from Moscow was spoken of! 'An utter fiasco, a debacle!' exclaimed Pa