range was not very exact, and only a few were wounded--those who retired
directly backwards instead of transversely out of the shells' direction.

The H.Q. of the rear-guard left St Waast about 5.30. It was cold and
chilly. What happened I do not quite know. All I remember was that at a
given order a battery would gallop off the road into action against an
enemy we could not see. So to Bavai, where I was sent off with an
important despatch for D.H.Q. I had to ride past the column, and
scarcely had I gone half a mile when my back tyre burst. There was no
time to repair it, so on I bumped, slipping all over the road. At
D.H.Q., which of course was on the road, I borrowed some one else's
bicycle and rode back by another road. On the way I came across Huggie
filling up from an abandoned motor-lorry. I did likewise, and then tore
into Bavai. A shell or two was bursting over the town, and I was nearly
slaughtered by some infantrymen, who thought they were firing at an
aeroplane. Dodging their bullets, I left the town, and eventually caught
up the H.Q. of the rear-guard.

It was now about 10.30. Until five the troops tramped on, in a scorching
sun, on roads covered with clouds of dust. And most pitiful of all,
between the rear-guard and the main body shuffled the wounded; for we
had been forced to evacuate our hospital at Bavai. Our men were mad at
retreating. The Germans had advanced on them in the closest order. Each
fellow firmly believed he had killed fifty, and was perfectly certain
we could have held our line to the crack of doom. They trudged and
trudged. The women, who had cheerily given us everything a few days
before, now with anxious faces timorously offered us water and fruit.

Great ox-waggons full of refugees, all in their best clothes, came in
from side-roads. None of them were allowed on the roads we were