France lost her temper with England.
Germany, if she only knew it, had lost the war.
23
The new line of defence was to be the canal at Flavy.
After two hours’ sleep in boots, spurs and Dickie’s coat, a servant called me with tea and bacon. Washing or shaving was out of the question. The horses were waiting—poor brutes, how they were worked those days—and the Quartermaster-sergeant and I got mounted and rode away into the unknown dark, flickering a torch from time to time on to the map and finding our way by it.
With the Captain on leave, one subaltern dead, another left behind in Germany, a third wounded, one good sergeant and my corporal signaller away on a course, it didn’t look like a very hopeful start for fighting an indefinite rearguard action.
I was left with the Babe, keen but not very knowledgeable, and one other subaltern who became a stand-by. They two were coming with me and the guns; the sergeant-major would be left with the wagon line. Furthermore I had absolutely no voice and couldn’t speak above a whisper.
Of what had happened on the flanks of our army and along the whole front, there was absolutely no news. The Divisional infantry and gunners were mostly killed or captured in the mist. We never saw anything of them again but heard amazing tales of German officers walking into the backs of batteries in the fog and saying, “Will you cease fire, please? You are my prisoners,” as polite as you please.
What infantry were holding the canal, I don’t know,—presumably those who had held our hilltop overnight. All we knew was that our immediate job was to meet the Colonel in Flavy and get a position in the Riez de Cugny just behind and pump shells into the Germans as they advanced on the canal. The Babe and the Stand-by were to bring the battery to a given rendezvous. Meanwhile the Colonel and all of us foregathered in a wrecked cottage in Flavy and studied maps while the Colonel swallowed a hasty cup of tea. He was ill and a few hours later was sent back in an ambulance.
By eight o’clock we had found positions and the guns were coming in. Camouflage was elementary. Gun platforms were made from the nearest cottage wall or barn doors. Ammunition was dumped beside the gun wheels.