As soon as the men began to scale the steep incline opposite, they saw that the costs had not been paid by the British alone.  Figures, covered in most cases by their own grey overcoats, lay out upon the ground.  Leaning up against a wall a body was still lolling.  It was a sight that no one who saw it will ever forget.  There was no head; it had been shorn oft as cleanly as if the man had been guillotined.  An unburst shell had probably swept the man’s head from his shoulders as he looked over the wall, and the aimless-looking trunk was still leaning against the wall as if “waiting for further orders.”

The pursuit was continued until it was quite dark.  The Companies wheeled into the fields, and slept where they stood.  The Colonel delivered a short address, which showed that all was not as well as it looked.  But what really did worry them was lack of straw.  The Colonel was of the opinion that the enemy would take his stand on the opposite bank of the Marne, which, he told them, was only half a mile ahead.  To-morrow there would be a fight, the like of which neither they nor any one else had seen before.

They were disturbed that night, not indeed by the fear of what to-morrow might hold in store, but by a small stampede of escaped horses, who careered madly over the sleeping lines, injuring one man very severely.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CROSSING OF THE MARNE

As soon as dawn broke—­a dawn exceptionally cold and cheerless—­the cavalry pushed forward to effect some sort of reconnaissance.  Meanwhile the infantry had nothing better to do than to conceal themselves behind the copses that covered the slope, and await their turn.  In about an hour’s time they were deployed and moved cautiously forward to the attack, the Batteries being already placed in readiness for the beginning of the “show.”

No army in the world can execute this movement as scientifically or as safely as the British Army.  Memories of South Africa and Indian frontier fights have left us undoubtedly the finest scouting army in Europe.  We were, of course, hopelessly outmatched in artillery and numbers.  But artillery being equal, there was not a Brigade in any army in the world that could have held its own against a British Brigade.  That, however, is by the way.

They pressed steadily forward, and, having breasted the slope, the valley of the Marne burst suddenly upon their view.  It was at least three miles in breadth, and the opposite heights were screened by woods.  A small town marked the bridge.  The country was “open”—­painfully open; there was not an atom of real cover between them and the heights opposite.

But no shells came whistling towards them.  No doubt the enemy was holding his fire until they were within closer range. (Not a pleasant thought, this, by any means.) But no, they went on scrambling down the deep slope, and still no sound of firing disturbed the morning silence.  As each moment fled by the Subaltern thought to himself, “Not yet!  Well, the next minute will bring things about our heads!” But the next minute kept on passing as uneventfully as its predecessors.