When Horace came up with the dispatches, he found himself entangled in such a confused retreat that an hour passed before he discovered some one who could tell him to what place staff headquarters had been moved. And, when he reached there, it had moved again. Undoubtedly some kind of order existed, but to the boy's untrained eyes, all was confusion, while into, over and through this confusion, Von Hausen's cavalry was plunging.
All communication between the Fifth French Army and the British troops was cut by the presence of Von Kluck at Thuin. Horace, who, thanks to the veteran's teaching and the hunchback's perception of military values, had a fair idea of the strategy of the campaign, saw the danger that the British might be encircled and captured in a body. Accordingly, he volunteered to try to take the news of the fall of Charleroi to Sir John French. Owing to lack of telegraphic communication with the General Staff, the Fifth Army Staff had no warrant for this, but the boy was given to understand that if he took the news on his own responsibility, he might be rendering the British an important service. He decided to go.
Horace had planned to ride south within the circle of the forts of Maubeuge and thence toward Sir John French's headquarters, but he was compelled to abandon the plan. Every road to the rear was choked with wounded, with refugees, with transport, with the inextricable disarray of vehicles that follows a sudden change of army plans under the threat of a disaster. Horace, fearing that every hour might see the final smash of the weak corner between the Fourth and Fifth Armies, made all the weaker by the pounding of the mysterious Von Hausen army which had marched its way through the Ardennes forests unseen by airmen, rode on, heartsick and despairing. Finding Maubeuge unreachable, he turned his motor-cycle north with a grim determination to try and save the British and bring them back into the fighting diamond. Clear in his mind's eyes lay the situation. The British, the Fourth Army and the Fifth Army must retreat slowly in order, on the fourth army—the reserves near Paris.
He ran into the zone of shell-fire. Now, the boy hardly cared. He was beginning to find himself and the work that he really could do. What if his heart seemed to beat as loudly as the exhaust of the motor-cycle itself? He was going on! A few miles further, the shell-fire slackened. This sector was less furiously attacked. Presently he shot past a farm wagon loaded with hay.
A shout stopped him.
"You're French, aren't you?"
"Yes," answered Horace, not seeing any need for explanations.
"Well, the Germans aren't more than a mile ahead of you, thousands of them. You'll run slap into the middle of them if you go on."