Now the Force, or rather our left, was actually in sight of the outlying forts of Paris, about a dozen miles off. Great was the excitement, for, of course, everyone jumped to the conclusion that we were making for the capital. G.H.Q. was at Lagny-sur-Marne, just 15 miles due east of Paris. They actually got as far south as Melun, on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, before the tide turned.
If you look at these places on the picture-map you will see that, after Senlis was passed, the Force, instead of retiring straight on towards Paris, as it had been doing, now swung round, with the right flank of the First Corps as pivot, and marched in a south-easterly direction. Possibly the enemy imagined from this that their chance had come, and that they would now be able to slip in between our left and Paris. But the new French army was coming up from behind Paris, upon our left, to fill the gap and cover the approaches to the city.
That swinging round movement to cross the River Marne was rather a risky business, for it meant marching for a certain distance across the enemy's front. However, it was successfully accomplished, and by the evening of September 3rd the Force was south of the river. That same afternoon our aircraft reported that the Germans had also swung eastwards, and were now apparently making for the large town of Château-Thierry, the point of division between our extreme right and the 5th French Army.
The position in which the Force found themselves that evening was wellnigh hopeless from a defensive point of view. To make matters worse, we were very badly off for entrenching tools, the men having lost the greater part in the hurried retirement after the hard battle at the Wednesday. This question of entrenching tools was further complicated by the removal of our base to St. Nazaire, for that meant a much more serious difficulty in getting up supplies.
I forgot to mention that when orders reached the Second Corps and 4th Division on the Thursday night to keep on the move, instructions were given by G.H.Q. to abandon everything, even the ammunition, which might retard the transport, and so to leave the vehicles free for wounded or the more exhausted of the men. Only one Division carried out the order, and that only partially, before the G.O.C. Second Corps on the spot realised it was unnecessary and countermanded it.
During and after the battle of Le Cateau, as I have said the fight of the Wednesday has come to be spoken of, a rather curious adventure befell one of the motor transport ammunition parks About ten of the lorries, under an A.S.C. subaltern, had been doing some detached work away from the main body. These had got out of rather a tight corner, but the rest of the park (some sixty odd lorries) had become involved in that mix-up at Estrées.
About 3 P M. the A.S.C. captain in charge received an order to go back in the direction of Le Cateau. This was, apparently, straight into the advancing enemy, who were only some three or four miles off. The C.O. obeyed his orders and took his lorries back. From that moment those sixty great lorries vanished into thin air, and not a soul knew what had happened to them. At G.H.Q. the unit was officially reported as "missing," and it so appeared, I believe, in the London Press.
The subaltern invented and spread abroad a delicious yarn. I omit his version of his own adventures, for he got a "mention in dispatches" for it, though this was subsequently quashed.
When the order to go back was received, he said, and annihilation of the park seemed certain, the O.C. called his subalterns together and told them the position. They unanimously decided to obey and charge the advancing enemy with the lorries. The drivers (our old friends the busmen) were instructed to go full speed ahead into the enemy column. But the drivers were not having any. So the officers produced their revolvers and threatened to shoot any man who refused to obey. That decided them. "We will die by German bullets rather than British." So away they went, the lorries bumping along the road straight into the ranks of the astonished Germans. Nothing could stop them, and the column got through (the narrator forgot to mention where to) with the loss of about half the park.
The subaltern carried his arm in a sling for a fortnight afterwards. A shrapnel splinter, he said, when they were rushing the enemy. It had really been caused by the back-fire of a motor-bike. Possibly this is the origin of that glorified picture which appeared in certain of the London illustrated papers.