same!"

9

The station was Creil, the headquarters, at that time, of the British
forces. It was crowded with French soldiers, and they were soon
telling me their experience of the hard fighting in which they had been
engaged.

They were dirty, unshaven, dusty from head to foot, scorched by the
heat of the August sun, in tattered uniforms, and broken boots. But
they were beautiful men for all their dirt; and the laughing courage,
the quiet confidence, the un-bragging simplicity with which they
assured me that the Germans would soon be caught in a death-trap
and sent to their destruction, filled me with an admiration which I
cannot express in words. All the odds were against them; they had
fought the hardest of all actions along the way of retreat; they knew
and told me that the enemy were fighting at Senlis, within ten miles of
the Parisian fortifications, but they had an absolute faith in the
ultimate success of their allied arms.

One of the French soldiers gave me his diary to read. In spite of his
dirty uniform, his brown unwashed hands and the blond unkempt
beard which disguised fine features and a delicate mouth, it was clear
to see that he was a man of good breeding and education.

"It may amuse you," he said. "You see, I have been busy as a
destroyer."

It was a record of the blowing up of bridges, and the words had been
scribbled into a small note-book on the way of retreat. In its brevity
this narrative of a sergeant of sappers is more eloquent than long
descriptions in polished prose. One passage in it seemed to me
almost incredible; the lines which tell of a German aviator who took a
tiny child with him on his mission of death. But a man like this, whose
steel-blue eyes looked into mine with such fine frankness, would not
put a lie into his note-book, and I believed him. I reproduce the
document now as I copied it away from the gaze of a French officer
who suspected this breach of regulations:

August 25. Started for St. Quentin and arrived in evening. Our section
set out again next morning for a point twelve kilometres behind, at
Montescourt-Lezeroulles, in order to mine a bridge. We worked all the
night and returned to St. Quentin, where we did reconnaissance
work.

August 27. Germans signalled and station of St. Quentin evacuated.

We were directed to maintain order among the crowd who wished to
go away. It was a very sad spectacle, all the women and children
weeping and not enough trains