hen the Commander-in-Chief had to
make a hurried flight with a mounted escort, when the Adjutant-
General's department, busy in the chateau of a French village,
suddenly awakened to the knowledge that it had been forgotten and
left behind (I heard a personal story of the escape that followed the
awakening), and when companies, battalions, and regiments lost
touch with each other, were bewildered in dark woods and unknown
roads, and were shelled unexpectedly by an enemy of whose
whereabouts they had now no definite knowledge. The German net of
iron was drawing tighter. In a few hours it might close round and
make escape impossible. General Allenby's division of cavalry had a
gallop for life, when the outposts came in with reports of a great
encircling movement of German horse, so that there was not a
moment to lose if a great disaster were to be averted. It was Allenby
himself who led his retreat at the head of his division by the side of a
French guide carrying a lantern.

For twenty miles our cavalry urged on their tired horses through the
night, and along the sides of the roads came a struggling mass of
automobiles, motor-cycles, and motor-wagons, carrying engineers,
telegraphists and men of the Army Service Corps. Ambulances
crammed with wounded who had been picked up hurriedly from the
churches and barns which had been used as hospitals, joined the
stampede, and for many poor lads whose heads had been broken by
the German shells and whose flesh was on fire with frightful wounds,
this night-ride was a highway of torture which ended in eternal rest.

All the way the cavalry and the convoys were followed by the enemy,
and there were moments when it seemed inevitable that the strength
of the horses would give out and that the retreating force would be
surrounded. But as we know now, the enemy was exhausted also.
Their pursuit was a chase by blown horses and puffed men. They
called a halt and breathed heavily, at the very time when a last gallop
and a hard fight would have given them their prize--the flower of the
British army.

On that last stage of the retreat we lost less men than any text-book
of war would have given as a credible number in such conditions.
Many who were wounded as they tramped through woods splintered
by bursting shells and ripped with bullets, bandaged themselves as
best they could and limped on, or were carried by loyal comrades
who would not leave a pal in the lurch. Others who lost their way