Coffee over, we walked about the village. Hardly a village—a cluster of houses along unpaved lanes which were almost impassable. There were tumbling stables full of horses, groups of Indians standing under dripping eaves for shelter, sentries, here and there a peasant. The houses were replicas of the one where Makand Singh had his quarters.
Although it was still raining, a dozen Indian Lancers were exercising their horses. They dismounted and stood back to let us pass. Behind them, as they stood, was the great Cross.
That was the final picture I had of the village of Ham and the Second Lahore Lancers—the turbaned Indians with their dripping horses, the grave bow of Makand Singh as he closed the door of the car, and behind him a Scotch corporal in kilt and cap, with a cigarette tucked behind his ear.
We went on. I looked back, Makand Singh was making his careful way through the mud; the horses were being led to a stable. The Cross stood alone.
CHAPTER XXVIII
SIR JOHN FRENCH
The next day I was taken along the English front, between the first and the second line of trenches, from Béthune, the southern extremity of the line, the English right flank, to the northern end of the line just below Ypres. In a direct line the British front at that time extended along some twenty-seven miles. But the line was irregular, and I believe was really well over thirty.
I have never been in an English trench. I have been close enough to the advance trenches to be shown where they lay, and to see the slight break they make in the flat country. I was never in a dangerous position at the English front, if one excepts the fact that all of that portion of the country between the two lines of trenches is exposed to shell fire.
No shells burst near me. Béthune was being intermittently shelled, but as far as I know not a shell fell in the town while I was there. I lunched on a hill surrounded by batteries, with the now celebrated towns of Messines and Wytschaete just across a valley, so that one could watch shells bursting over them. And still nothing threatened my peace of mind or my physical well-being. And yet it was one of the most interesting days of a not uneventful period.
In the morning I was taken, still in General Huguet's car, to British
Headquarters again, to meet Sir John French.