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.

An hour or so later they ran into a French Battalion, apparently
preparing to occupy an outpost position along the bank of the road. This
was a cheering sight. Tommy, who had expected to fight mixed up in some
weird way with "le petit Piou-Piou," had not yet seen a Frenchman in
action. In a vague way he fancied that "the Frenchies" had "let him
down." He knew nothing of the battles of Charleroi and Namur, nor of the
defence of Verdun, and the French were getting dreadfully unpopular with
him. Things were thrown at any one who ventured to sing the
"Marseillaise."

"Oh, '_ere_ they are; so they '_ave_ come. Well, that's somethink."