CHAPTER II


Can the die fall which side up it will? Nay, not if it be honest.
--EASTERN PROVERB.


Many a league our infantry advanced that night, the guns following,
getting the new range by a miracle each time they took new ground.
We went forward, too, at the cost of many casualties--too many in
proportion to the work we did. We were fired on in the darkness more
than once by our own infantry. We, who had lost but seventy-two men
killed and wounded in the charge, were short another hundred when
the day broke and nothing to the good by it.

Getting lost in the dark--falling into shell-holes--swooping down on
rear-guards that generally proved to have machine guns with them--
weary men on hungrier, wearier horses--the wonder is that a man rode
back to tell of it at dawn.

One-hundred-and-two-and-seventy were our casualties, and some two
hundred horses--some of the men so lightly wounded that they were
back in the ranks within the week. At dawn they sent us to the rear
to rest, we being too good a target for the enemy by daylight. Some
of us rode two to a horse. On our way to the camp the French had
pitched for us we passed through reenforcements coming from another
section of the front, who gave us the right of way, and we took the
salute of two divisions of French infantry who, I suppose, had been
told of the service we had rendered. Said I to Gooja Singh, who sat