THE MARCH

I now come to one of the most remarkable, and in some respects certainly the most comical, of all the episodes in which Colonel Best-Dunkley figured—­the memorable march from Millain to Westbecourt.  The following lengthy epistle which I wrote in my billet in the Vale of Acquin at Westbecourt the following day draws a perfectly accurate picture of what happened: 

“You will be interested to learn that we have moved again.  We are now billeted in a pretty little village in the heart of north-eastern France....

“Yesterday, Saturday June 16, 1917—­the hundred and second anniversary of Ligny and Quatre Bras—­is a day I am not likely ever to forget.  Such a march we had; and it was some stunt!  Let me tell you, as far as I can without naming places, the whole story.

“Reveille sounded at 3 a.m.  I rose at 5 a.m.  We (the officers) had breakfast at 5.30.  Parade at 6.  At 6.45 we marched off from the village in which we had been billeted during the last few days.  It was a very long march which we had before us to the village in which we now are—­a distance of sixteen miles.  Yet we were expecting to arrive there by midday!  I will show you how events turned out so that we did not arrive here anything like midday.  The weather was, and is, just as it has been all the time—­a cloudless sky and a burning sun.  It was already quite warm when we set off, and as the morning advanced the sun naturally became more powerful still.  We joined up with the rest of the Brigade a little further on, and marched past General Stockwell and Major Thompson (the Brigade-Major).”

It was in the streets of Watten that we marched past Stockwell; and I vividly recollect that he was not at all pleased with things as early as that.  I distinctly heard the word ‘rabble’ burst from his lips!  The letter proceeds: 

“Men began to fall out before we reached the first village (or town as it happened to be).  And as soon as the falling out began it continued without ceasing, only becoming more frequent the farther we got.  I do think they began falling out too early.  Every time a man fell out we subalterns had to drop behind with him and give him a chit.  That naturally took time and one got right behind; then one would endeavour to catch up again; as soon as one was back with one’s own platoon—­generally before—­one would come across more men of one’s company who had fallen out, and so would get right back again.  Thus it went on the whole time.  It meant that we had double the walking to do that the men had; and we were loaded like Christmas trees just like them.  Fortunately there was a mess cart with the Transport, containing still lemonade; so I had a drink now and then.  It is an Army idea that one should not drink on the march:  that it knocks one up much quicker.  I say frankly, from experience, that it is nonsense.  I drank as much as I could get hold of on the way (by no means as much as I could have drunk!) and though I was jolly