The French still wear the blue and red uniform, and sad to say it is greatly owing to that fact that they have suffered so terribly from the German fire. It seems that an airman, even when flying very high, sees the bright patches of blue lying beneath him, when the British khaki, and even more the greenish-grey German uniform, would be quite invisible.
Many of you, I am sure, have been to Boulogne, either to spend a happy summer holiday there, or when going through to some other part of France. Henceforth we shall all look upon the beautiful old French port with a new interest and a new respect. For there the British Expeditionary Force landed in August 1914.
Till that date Boulogne was chiefly famous as having been the “jumping-off place” from which Napoleon planned to make a victorious invasion of England. It was the Battle of Waterloo which saved us from that invasion. So Boulogne had a long and intimate acquaintance with British warriors, but never till this year in the guise of friends. The noble ghosts of these British warriors were evoked in splendid fashion in the following lines by Mr. Justin Huntly M‘Carthy:
“One dreamer, when our English soldiers trod
But yesterday the welcoming fields of France,
Saw war-gaunt shadows gathering stare askance
Upon those levies and that alien sod—
Saw Churchill’s smile and Wellington’s curt nod,
Saw Harry with his Crispins, Chandos’ lance,
And the Edwards on whose breasts the leopards dance: