The march came to an end about one o’clock.  A halt of half-an-hour for dinner was ordered in the shade of some huge trees in a park.  The mess-cart and Cookers arrived, and a meal was soon in progress.  The Regimental Officer of what is now referred to as the “Old Army” was perhaps the best-mannered man one could possibly meet.  His training in the Mess made him so.  He was the sort of man who would not have done anything which so much as even suggested rudeness or greed.  He was as scrupulous of his Mess Rules as a Roman Catholic Priest is of his conduct at High Mass.  To the newly-joined Subaltern, Guest Night conveyed the holy impression of a religious rite.  But here was a comic demonstration of the fact that the strictest training is only, after all, a veneer.  Two Senior Officers were actually squabbling about a quarter-pound tin of marmalade!  The Subaltern could not help smiling.  The incident merely showed how raw and jagged the Great Retreat had left the nerves of those who survived it.

An hour’s halt passed only too soon, and its later moments were made uneasy by the instinctive aversion which every one felt for the sound of the whistles that would mark the end of it.  The Battalion, however, had no sooner swung into the road, than the Colonel, who had been reading a message with an expression of surprise, held up his hand to signal the halt.  The moment was historic.  Although none knew, it was the end of the Great Retreat.

CHAPTER XVI

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

The next day the Battalion linked up with the Brigade, and instead of proceeding in the usual direction—­southwards—­they turned to the north.

There was a great deal of subdued excitement.  They were not going to move off for a precious hour or so, and, as “battle seemed imminent,” the Subaltern did his best to make up the “deficiencies” in his equipment.

Another Subaltern lay stricken with dysentery in one of the regimental wagons, and he “borrowed” his revolver and ammunition.  Apart from the fact that the poor fellow was in too great pain to dispute the robbery, he declared with embellishments that he never wanted to see the ——­ thing again.  “Take it, and be ——­ to it!” he said.

Curiously enough, the Subaltern was able to stick to the loan through all the troubles that followed, and was eventually able to return it to its owner, met casually in the London Hippodrome, months later.

Soon afterwards, when they were marching through a village called Chaumes, he learnt that in the forthcoming battle they were to be in General Reserve, and this relieved the nervous tension for the moment.  There was a feeling that a great chance of distinguished service was lost, but as the General Reserves are usually flung into the fight towards its concluding stages, he did not worry on that score.

The four Regiments of the Brigade were massed in very close formation in a large orchard, ready to move at a moment’s notice.  There they lay all day, sleeping with their rifles in their hands, or lying flat on their backs gazing at the intense blue of the sky overhead.