We were called when it was still dark and very cold (August 30).  I was vainly trying to warm myself at a feeble camp fire when the order came to move off—­without breakfast.  The dawn was just breaking when we set out—­to halt a hundred yards or so along.  There we shivered for half an hour with nothing but a pipe and a scrap of chocolate that had got stuck at the bottom of my greatcoat pocket.  Finally, the motor-cyclists, to their great relief, were told that they might go on ahead.  The Grimers and I cut across a country to get away from the column.  We climbed an immense hill in the mist, and proceeding by a devious route eventually bustled into Attichy, where we found a large and dirty inn containing nothing but some bread and jam.  The column was scheduled to go ten miles farther, but “the situation being favourable” it was decided to go no farther.  Headquarters were established by the roadside, and I was sent off to a jolly village right up on the hill to halt some sappers, and then back along the column to give the various units the names of their billets.

We supped off the sizzling bacon and slept on the grass by the side of the road.  That night George burned his Rudge.  It was an accident, but we were none too sorry, for it had given much trouble.  There were messages right through the night.  At one in the morning I was sent off to a Chateau in the Forest of Compiegne.  I had no map, and it was a pure accident that I found my way there and back.

The next day (Aug. 31) was a joyous ride.  We went up and down hills to a calm, lazy little village, Haute Fontaine.  There we took a wrong turning and found ourselves in a blackberry lane.  It was the hottest, pleasantest of days, and forgetting all about the more serious things—­we could not even hear the guns—­we filled up with the softest, ripest of fruit.  Three of us rode together, N’Soon, Grimers, and myself.  I don’t know how we found our way.  We just wandered on through sleepy, cobbled villages, along the top of ridges with great misty views and by quiet streams.  Just beyond a village stuck on to the side of a hill, we came to a river, and through the willows we saw a little church.  It was just like the Happy Valley that’s over the fields from Burford.

We all sang anything we could remember as we rattled along.  The bits of columns that we passed did not damp us, for they consisted only of transport, and transport can never be tragic—­even in a retreat.  The most it can do is to depress you with a sense of unceasing monotonous effort.

About three o’clock we came to a few houses—­Bethancourt.  There was an omelette, coffee, and pears for us at the inn.  The people were frightened.

     Why are the English retreating?  Are they defeated?

      No, it is only a strategical movement.

      Will the dirty Germans pass by here?  We had better pack up
     our traps and fly.

We were silent for a moment, then I am afraid I lied blandly.