What human being, however cold-hearted, could help feeling deep pity at the sight of those poor, weak and inoffensive creatures fleeing before invasion?  There were pitiable sights on every hand.  A mother pushing a perambulator containing several small children, whilst five or six others were hanging on to her dress or trotting along around her.  Poor invalids, dragged, pushed, carried by all possible means, sooner than be left in the hands of the Prussians.  Old men helped along by boys; infants carried by old men.  And as they passed they all cast a look of distress at the officer who rode quickly by, averting his eyes.  I thought I saw a reproach in those glances:  they seemed to say to me:  “Why haven’t you been able to defend us?  Why have you let them come into our country?  See how we are suffering.  Look at our little children, who cannot walk any further.  Where are we to go now that, by your fault, we have left the homes of our childhood, and of our fathers and our fathers’ fathers?  Is that what war is?” I urged on my horse to get them out of my sight and to reach the fighting line as quickly as I could.

Suddenly the report of a gun sounded straight in front of me.  Further off a few rifle shots were audible, and then guns again, accompanied by concentrated rifle fire.  A kind of shiver passed through my whole body.

My first battle!  I was going to take part in my first battle!  I felt really mad and intoxicated at the thought of at last realising the dream of my life.  But other feelings were mingled with it.  I reflected:  “What effect will it have upon me?  I expect I shall come into the middle of the fight when I get over that ridge.  Shall I duck my head when I hear the bullets whistling and the shrapnel bursting around me?  I am determined to play the man.  I know Wattrelot is close by, trotting behind me.  He mustn’t see the least symptom of nervousness in me.”

The noise of the guns became louder.  “By the way!...  I wonder what Wattrelot feels like!” I turned to look at him, and found his face a bit pale; but directly he saw me glance at his blue north-country eyes, his face lit up with a broad smile.

“Here we are, sir.”

“Yes, Wattrelot, here we are.  I’m sure you don’t know what fear is!”

“Oh! no, sir.”

“That’s all right.  Forward then!  To the guns!”

We passed through a hamlet full of waggons and motors.  Some orderlies were loading them up with rations and boxes.  On one of these I happened to see the number of my own army corps.  “I’m all right then,” thought I, and turned to an adjutant of the Army Service Corps, who was superintending the work.

“Do you know where the Staff of the ——­ Corps is?” I asked.

The man shrugged his shoulders to show that he didn’t, and that he didn’t care.  What did it matter to him?  His job was to get the goods loaded, forget nothing, and then to go to his appointed post where he would have to wait for further orders to unload his stuff in the evening.  He had enough to do.  What did anything else matter to him?  However, he pointed in a vague manner:  “They went over there....”