It was a grubby farm with not much water, but we made the best of it, and settled down for the night. A starved-looking priest was also sleeping there, and he told me his story.
He and a fellow-priest, an Aumônier from Paris, had been on their way to join the French unit to which they had been allotted for ambulance purposes, when they fell into German hands and were treated as prisoners. The priest was robbed by a sergeant of 1200 francs, his sole possessions, and both he and the Aumônier were beaten black and blue, forced to march carrying German knapsacks, and kept practically without food or drink. After three days the Aumônier succumbed to ill usage and died, and the priest only managed to escape because his captors were themselves on the run.
The priest also told us that there were some British prisoners in the column, and that the Germans behaved perfectly brutally to them, kicking them, starving them, and forcing them to carry German knapsacks.
Sept. 11th.
Next morning we did not move off till 9.25, for the supplies to the Brigades did not arrive as soon as we expected, and hence the column was late in starting. We dawdled along, forming the rear brigade, in cool weather, and nothing in particular happened beyond reports coming in from the front that the Germans were quite demoralised. It came on to pour as we left Chouy, and at Billy we parked the transport and prepared to billet there. But it was already chokeful of other troops, and more than half our brigade would have had to bivouac in the sopping fields. So we pushed on to St Remy, and, evacuating some cavalry and making them move on to some farms a bit ahead,—including Massereene and his North Irish Horse, who, I fear, were not much pleased at having to turn out of their comfortable barns,—we billeted there, headquarters being taken up in the Curé's house. Even here his poor little rooms had been ransacked, drawers and tables upset and their contents littered over the floor, and everything of the smallest value stolen by the Germans.
Sept. 12th.
Off at 5 A.M., we did only a short march as far as the Ferme de l'Épitaphe, a huge farm standing by itself in a vast and dreary plain of ploughed fields. Here we halted in pouring rain all day, expecting orders to go on. But we eventually had to billet there, with the Divisional Headquarters, and though we could only put up the Bedfords and the Cheshires there was a terrific squash. The Dorsets and Norfolks were sent back to billet at Nampteuil, a village a mile or so back, but even here there was some confusion, as the 14th Brigade had meanwhile arrived and begun to billet there. They were, however, sent back likewise to Chrisy, and the whole Division passed a most uncomfortable night. The rain never ceased from pouring, and a gale sprang up, which made matters worse. We slept in a loft with a number of Cheshire and Bedford officers, and didn't get dinner till past nine. Some gunner officers turned up, with no food at all, and we fed them; but there wasn't much at the best of times, for we had no rations and had to depend on the contents of our Mess basket, which consisted only of Harvey sauce, knives and forks, an old ham-bone, sweet biscuits, and jam.
It was fine in the morning, but the farmyard was ankle-deep in water and slush, and the sky was leaden with lurid clouds in the east, when we started at 4.10 A.M. We pushed on slowly in column for the few miles to Serches, and there we halted at the cross-roads on the top of the plateau and parked the brigade whilst the situation was cleared up by troops in front. Shells began to drop unpleasantly near us, and a couple of field batteries which got into action just in front of us, together with a "cow-gun"[8] (60 lb.) battery, only drew the hostile fire still more. They were pretty big shells, Black Marias mostly, and the heavy battery being right out in the open suffered somewhat severely, losing eight horses and a few men killed and wounded by one shell alone.
So we prudently scattered the battalions a bit, and the field batteries limbered up and walked slowly back under cover of a slope. But the cow-guns had one gun disabled, and though they also moved back and got again into action they were evidently spotted and had rather a poor time.