They were not very far wrong.  At Picquigny, they were less than four miles distant—­a small patrol of outposts belonging to the squadrons which were sweeping out in a fan through the northern towns and villages of France.

As I passed, French Territorials were hastily digging trenches close to the railway line.  Reports came from stations further along that the line might be cut at any moment.  A train crowded with French and Belgian fugitives had come to a dead halt.  The children were playing on the banks—­with that divine carelessness and innocence which made one’s heart ache for them in this beastly business of war—­and their fathers and mothers, whose worldly goods had been packed into baskets and brown paper parcels—­the poor relics of all that had been theirs—­wondered whether after all their sufferings and struggles they would reach the town of Amiens and find safety there.

It was obvious to me that there was a thrill of uneasiness in the military machine operating in the district.  Troops were being hurried up in a north-westerly direction.  A regiment of Algerians came swinging along the road.  The sight of the Turcos put some heart into the fugitives.  Those brown faces were laughing like children at the prospect of a fight.  They waved their hands with the curious Arab gesture of salute, and shuffled along merrily with their rifles slung behind their backs.  Military motor-cars carrying little parties of French officers swept down the roads, and then there were no more battalions but only stragglers, and hurrying fugitives driving along in farmers’ carts, packed with household goods, in two-wheeled gigs, overburdened with women and children, riding on bicycles, with parcels tied to the saddles, or trudging wearily and anxiously along, away from the fear where the blood-red sun was setting over France.  It was pitiful to see the children clinging to the women’s skirts along that road of panic, and pitiful but fine, to see the courage of those women.  Then night fell and darkness came across the fields of France, and through the darkness many grim shadows of war, looming up against one’s soul.

There was une affaire des patrouilles—­what the British soldier calls a “scrap”—­along the road at Albert, between Amiens and Cambrai.  A party of German Uhlans, spreading out from a strong force at Cambrai itself, had been engaged by the French Territorials, and after some sharp fighting had retired, leaving several dead horses in the dust and a few huddled forms from which the French soldiers had taken burnished helmets and trophies to their women folk.

That was on Friday night of August 28.  The real fighting was taking place fifteen kilometres further along the road, at a place called Bapeaume.  All day on Friday there was very heavy fighting here on the left centre, and a victory was announced by the French Ministry of War.

I did not see the victory.  I saw only the retreat of some of the French forces engaged in the battle.