“No, sir; you’re nearly in the outpost line.  There’s only Royal Blankshires in front, sir.”

So they had evidently not come this way.  Where next?  They must be found.  He felt that to lose his men would be a sort of dishonour.  Even while he was thinking, a shout was wafted on the wind out of the darkness and chasing it, overtaking it almost, a rifle shot.  It was as if a match had been applied to the whole line.  With the rapidity of wind the crackling spread to either side.

Soon the whole line in front was blazing away into the darkness.  Should the Subaltern stop and try to lend assistance where he was, or hurry back to his own unit?  Before long a couple of men rushed along the road crying out for Stretcher Bearers, and he learnt from one of them that in the darkness and confusion of the retreat, British had been fighting with British.  The pitch darkness shrouded every action with a ghastly uncertainty.

Then news came through that another bridge had been captured.  A fresh company arrived in reinforcement.  There was nothing for it but to effect a retreat before the morning light could betray their weakness to the Germans.  Apparently, however, the capture of the bridge had only been a precautionary measure, for the enemy did not press his attack home.

The Subaltern saw that the best thing he could do would be to return to the remainder of his Battalion at Maroilles.  If he were to grope about the countryside in the dark, looking for “that battery,” he would most likely be shot down for a spy; moreover, in a little over two hours the morning would dawn.  So he trudged back to Maroilles.

He felt that he ought to have been on the verge of exhaustion from lack of food and from fatigue, and he vaguely wondered why he was not.  The truth was that the excitement of the attack, coupled with the chill of the night, had restored him in mind and body, although he had marched over twenty miles on the previous day, had had no sleep that night, and no meal since the evening of the battle of Mons.

The Battalion was taking its rest as well as it could on the pavement of the street, so as to be ready to move at a minute’s notice.  The Subaltern found his Major, and reported that he had failed to find his Platoon.  The Major was too sleepy to be annoyed.  “I expect they’ll turn up,” he said.  “We got some food in that house there; I should go and see if there is any left, if I were you.”

Followed a couple of hours or so of interrupted sleep, disturbed by the cold.  Then came dawn, and with it the shells whizzing and bursting over the town.

The retreat of the Brigade had been cut off by the breaking of the canal bridge the previous evening, so the Battalion had to retire to the east, and not to the west.  As the Subaltern marched along he reflected with grim amusement on the ease with which the most confirmed Sybarite can get accustomed to hardships.  At home, if he did anything early on an empty stomach, he very soon felt faint and tired.  Now, this was taken as a matter of course; one was only too glad to restore the circulation to the limbs, cramped with the cold and damp of dawn.