"Do your duty bravely,
"Fear God,
"Honour the King.
"(Signed), KITCHENER, Field Marshal,"
CHAPTER XXVI
A LUNCHEON AT BRITISH HEADQUARTERS
The same high-crowned roads, with pitfalls of mud at each side; the same lines of trees; the same coating of ooze, over which the car slid dangerously. But a new element—khaki.
Khaki everywhere—uniforms, tents, transports, all of the same hue. Skins, too, where one happens on the Indian troops. It is difficult to tell where their faces end and their yellow turbans begin.
Except for the slightly rolling landscape and the khaki one might have been behind the Belgian or French Army. There were as usual aëroplanes overhead, clouds of shrapnel smoke, and not far away the thunder of cannonading. After a time even that ceased, for I was on my way to British General Headquarters, well back from the front.
I carried letters from England to Field Marshal Sir John French, to Colonel Brinsley Fitzgerald, aid-de-camp to the "Chief," as he is called, and to General Huguet, the liaison between the French and English Armies. His official title is something entirely different, but the French word is apt. He is the connecting link between the English and French Armies.