retreating along, so I suppose they were pushed across the German front
until they fell into the Germans' hands.

For us it was column-riding the whole day--half a mile or so, and then a
halt,--heart-breaking work.

I was riding along more or less by myself in a gap that had been left in
the column. A curé stopped me. He was a very tall and very thin young
man with a hasty, frightened manner. Behind him was a flock of
panic-stricken, chattering old women. He asked me if there was any
danger. Not that he was afraid, he said, but just to satisfy his people.
I answered that none of them need trouble to move. I was too ashamed to
say we were retreating, and I had an eye on the congestion of the roads.
I have sometimes wondered what that tall, thin curé, with the sallow
face and the frightened eyes, said about me when, not twelve hours
later, the German advance-guard triumphantly defiled before him.

Late in the afternoon we passed through Le Cateau, a bright little town,
and came to the village of Reumont, where we were billeted in a large
barn.

We were all very confident that evening. We heard that we were holding a
finely entrenched position, and the General made a speech--I did not
hear it--in which he told us that there had been a great Russian
success, and that in the battle of the morrow a victory for us would
smash the Germans once and for all. But our captain was more
pessimistic. He thought we should suffer a great disaster. Doubting, we
snuggled down in the straw, and went soundly to sleep.

FOOTNOTES: