Before I close this chapter I ought to say a word about the Brigadier whose personality dominates the canvas.  I do not wish it to be supposed that I desire to reflect in any way upon the character and ability of General Stockwell.  Nothing could be further from my mind.  I relate the incident because it strikes me as being funny, because such an episode forms the subject for an interesting study in the bearing of two remarkable personalities, and because I hold that the truth should always be told about such matters.  The episode has long been a topic of intimate conversation amongst members of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers and their friends; many a laugh have we had about it.  Why should not the public be allowed to laugh with us?

All men and women, even the greatest, are capable of making mistakes.  Nobody is perfect.  Even the great Napoleon made mistakes.  So General Stockwell will not, I am sure, claim to be immaculate.  But for Clifton Inglis Stockwell as a General I entertain, and always have entertained, feelings of the most profound respect.  Nobody can possibly entertain a more ardent devotion for a leader than I entertain for General Stockwell under whom it has been my good fortune to have the honour to serve in 1917, in 1918, and in 1919.  The longer I have served under him the more have I admired his perfectly obvious talent, his brilliant initiative, and his striking personality.  His record in the Great War is unique.  As a captain in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, he commanded a company in the retreat from Mons in 1914.  He rose rapidly.  He became a major; and he became a colonel; and, during the Battle of the Somme, in 1916, he became a Brigadier-General, succeeding Brigadier-General Edwards in command of the 164th Brigade.  And he remained in command of that famous Brigade until the end of the war.  As I studied the countenance of General Stockwell on that country road at Boisdinghem that afternoon I realized that he was no ordinary twopenny-halfpenny brigadier; but I did not then know that this was the man who, less than twelve months later, was destined to stand between Ludendorff and decisive victory in his last dramatic throw at Givenchy on the glorious ninth of April, and seven months later still to be chosen to command the flying column known by his name which captured Ath on Armistice Day and fired the last shots of the Great War.  It is right that Stockwell’s place in history should be duly appreciated.

CHAPTER VI

THE GENERAL’S SPEECH

This chapter will be a very short one; but, despite its brevity, it seems to me that the event narrated in it should form the subject of a single chapter.  General Stockwell’s speech at Westbecourt, on Waterloo day, 1917, was a very remarkable speech; it was the most striking speech I have ever heard—­and I have listened to a good many famous public speakers in my time—­and it produced a very profound impression upon all who heard it.  I only wish there had been a reporter present to take it down verbatim.  But that could not be.  Those were the days of that most objectionable of all tyrants, the Censor!  I can but quote from the letter which I wrote home from Westbecourt on June 18: