Many months afterwards one of his nurses told him in hospital that she
had spent a long time in that very street. She had been with her father,
the erstwhile Colonel of a line regiment, and a specialist in strategy,
who for the pure love of the thing had laboriously gained permission to
stay at Meaux and visit the famous battlefields of the Marne. She said
they had been in the very room where General Joffre met Field-Marshal
French, and had bought the very teapot in which their tea was brewed.
She rather wondered how many more of these "very" teapots had been sold
at fancy prices!

If Von Kluck made a forward thrust at Paris before his sidelong movement
to the south-east, it was undoubtedly made at Meaux, which was the scene
of some terrific combats.

Emerging from the town, the Column branched off in a south-easterly
direction, and ascended the sides of a very steep plateau. Having
reached the flat ground at the top, a midday halt was made in the
pleasant grounds of yet another château.

This fresh move was discussed a great deal as the men lay at full length
in the shade of the trees. Evidently there was to be no siege of Paris.
They were marching directly away from Paris. What did it mean? They
would get to Marseilles in a fortnight at this rate, and then the only
thing to do would be to wire for the Fleet, and be taken safely home to
their mammas!

The march went on through the stifling heat of the afternoon, and the
Subaltern knew that he, and most of the men as well, were feeling about
as bad as it is possible to feel without fainting. They marched through
a very dense wood, and then out once more into the open. Even the