Gouzeaucourt was evidently greatly smitten by the war. It is a very extensive village raked by the devil from end to end. It swarms now on housetop and in yard with builders and joiners. A widespread clatter ascends from every road so that the very sparrows cannot hear themselves chirp. Hundreds of white barrack-like shelters have sprung into being. But as if the villagers had not had time for small amenities, every street and alley is strewn with brickbats. The scenery of the war still holds, and November 30th could be played over again without loss of reality from the scene.

The road out to Metz is quiet enough now with carts of turnips jolting along where three Novembers ago the lorries were fleeing. On the top of the bank stretches the view of a war moorland becoming once more grain-productive. To the north lies a pleasant boscage, the verdure of Havrincourt. Along the south goes the straight line and the tree-stumps which mark the Cambrai-Peronne road.

Metz-en-Couture looks like a great rubbish-heap from which masses of decaying brickwork are projecting. It is much less alive than Gouzeaucourt. Its returned French peasants are however at work. Like all desolated places which are off the railway it has to depend on motor transport for the materials of reconstruction, and it is characteristically behindhand compared with towns on the railway. And Gouzeaucourt is well served by a railway from Cambrai.

At Metz-en-Couture is a roadside cemetery. How good that most of the cemeteries are actually close to the highways, and even automobilists speeding past will see them, though it be only a blur on the consciousness. All the crosses will fade into one another as a car passes them. Here at Metz the Chinese and the Germans are put together as outcasts from the pens of decency if not from God's grace. But it will be all one to the man who passes by and does not pause to see. The pilgrim however will find the graves of the stalwart Guardsmen, and remember that they met their end saving the day and marching the right way when the foe had broken through. The whole winter of 1917-18 might have been very terrible had the Germans gained a great victory here, and bad as it was the rout of March 1918 might have been complete. As you walk back from Metz to Gouzeaucourt you figure again the way the enemy was stopped and his grand potential victory robbed of its crown. In Gouzeaucourt the Guards took back a hundred and fifty guns. Beyond Gouzeaucourt Wood they cleared out the machine-gunners. Next day at dawn the Grenadiers made good the line and together with the Indian cavalry closed the gap and dug in. The Indians were most happy in their association with the Guards in victory, and averred that henceforth December First would always be known as Grenadiers' Day.

Back at Metz the low-flying German airman who with his machine-gun had been whipping up the panic of the men who had fled was shot down. He was a young officer of the fearless angry type, terribly mortified at being taken prisoner. He was put in a cage by himself till one of our runaways came into the courtyard and began to strike a Charlie Chaplin pose, and the officer in charge lost his patience and thrust him in with the German. The German was striding up and down like a lion or tiger, and the sudden depression of the erstwhile Charlie Chaplin gave to the latter the gait of an Androcles thrown to a wild beast to be destroyed.

Later in the day German prisoners began to flow along the road from Gouzeaucourt to Metz in considerable numbers. What was the astonishment of the "Jerries" to find when they were put into the barbed-wire enclosures that their neighbours, also enclosed, were British and not German, and to see the mixed crowd of Old Bills, Labour-men, artillerymen, infantry, engineers, and even padres and officers mixed with men. Presently however these were marched out of the cages and lined up in miscellaneous squads derived from varying units with no distinction of rank. Rifles were put into their hands and an attempt was made to use them as a reserve defence in the trenches outside Metz. This however proved impossible. The disease of panic had gripped their minds, and at the idea of being sent to fight once more many threw their rifles down.

Up in the lines there were many comical scenes and disputes. The men made themselves at home in the abandoned dug-outs which they found, and where the dinner had been left cooking they finished it and ate it. Drummers and pipers found superb quarters, and such original owners as turned up were much annoyed. Disputes were settled by neutral soldiers as a rule and went in favour of those who had not lost guns or abandoned their posts.

Where the railway intersects the Gouzeaucourt-Cambrai road was a wonderful supply train, better than any golden wreck in desert-island story. This was stacked with every imaginable kind of food. The Germans had been through it, but had devoted their attention almost exclusively to the letters and the despatch-bags. They had taken away a few tit-bits but what was left sufficed the Guards for days. The transport was warned not to send up their rations for three days but to send up limbers instead to cart the food. At the disposal of the victors were also a number of abandoned motor-cars. There is a lively impression of a Sergeant-major going to and fro in a Ford car to this wonderful train. Authorities asked afterwards who had pillaged the train—the culprits ought to be brought to justice. But those in charge of that section of the line felt that the action was possibly excusable under the circumstances. Had they condemned it they had condemned themselves. The following lines by an unknown author appeared some months after the incident at Gouzeaucourt and men in the ranks copied it into their notebooks and diaries.

The Guards' Division were out to rest
They wanted it;
They'd "popped it"—"as on parade."
(What a jest!)
Then they'd held the line and had done their best
And were out.

Twenty-four hours had scarcely passed;
They were resting.
When an orderly—bearing a message fast—
"The Germans have broken through at last,
You're wanted."