General de Lisle was sleeping on the floor of the château dining room. The first of the mammoth quartette so shook the building that a lustre chandelier, housed in a dust-covering and therefore unnoticed, became detached and fell to the polished floor below. Its myriad tiny pieces of glass jangled musically as they showered over the General, who was sleeping peacefully beneath. Fortunately, de Lisle was not hit by any of the heavier portions of the costly ornament, but his emotions on being awakened from deep slumber by the resounding smash of the shell, followed by the crash of the falling chandelier and the attendant rain of tuneful prisms, can better be imagined than described.
For the rest of the night, the headquarters staff—with the exception of de Lisle himself—repaired to the cellar in search of less interrupted repose. The General, having ascertained that no other lustre chandelier was suspended from the ceiling, stuck to his original pitch.
The next morning at daybreak, 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters moved from that château, in spite of its many desirable attributes as a habitation.
On the 27th, General de Lisle sent me to the headquarters of Major Pilkington, of the 15th Hussars, on an errand. The reserve Belgian line was hard by. In backing my car, to turn it in the narrow lane, a bank of a reserve trench or ditch caved, and the poor car stood on its tail, at an uncomfortable and astonishing angle. Colonel Burnett and one of his 18th Hussar officers passed, and with their help and that of a dozen obliging 15th Hussar troopers, we attempted to move the brute. It resisted our combined efforts. Then the Belgians near by saw what had transpired and came at a run. In a jiffy the car was out, but having been lifted with more zeal than discretion was strained in so many places that it ran more like a crawfish than a car, until a week later, when time and opportunity allowed me to substitute an ample and expensive list of new parts.
Plodding through Poperinghe late that afternoon, the first of seven or eight 17-inch Boche "big 'uns" fell close behind me. I felt, rather than heard, a crash, the wave of sound deafening me. Missiles rained down sharply on roofs, walls and paved roadway. Lame duck though it was, the car lifted itself and sped at a touch of the accelerator pedal. I heard some of the other shells explode, but was well out of harm's way by the time they arrived.
On the 28th of April the Division was moved back to a bivouac in the woods that lined the Poperinghe—Proven road, the main highway to Dunkirk.
Late in the afternoon, after a splendid day of lying in the sun, which was greatly appreciated by the whole Division, billets to the westward were assigned to us, and we trekked off without delay.
Staff officers at lunch