The Army Commander was right; we were hanging on with our eyelashes.  We must have been easily the weakest part of the whole front, for we were holding a line which was never less than two miles and was often, as I judged, nearer five, and there was nothing in reserve to us except some oddments of cavalry who chased about the whole battle-field under vague orders.  Mercifully for us the Boche blundered.  Perhaps he did not know our condition, for our airmen were magnificent and you never saw a Boche plane over our line by day, though they bombed us merrily by night.  If he had called our bluff we should have been done, but he put his main strength to the north and the south of us.  North he pressed hard on the Third Army, but he got well hammered by the Guards north of Bapaume and he could make no headway at Arras.  South he drove at the Paris railway and down the Oise valley, but there Petain’s reserves had arrived, and the French made a noble stand.

Not that he didn’t fight hard in the centre where we were, but he hadn’t his best troops, and after we got west of the bend of the Somme he was outrunning his heavy guns.  Still, it was a desperate enough business, for our flanks were all the time falling back, and we had to conform to movements we could only guess at.  After all, we were on the direct route to Amiens, and it was up to us to yield slowly so as to give Haig and Petain time to get up supports.  I was a miser about every yard of ground, for every yard and every minute were precious.  We alone stood between the enemy and the city, and in the city was Mary.

If you ask me about our plans I can’t tell you.  I had a new one every hour.  I got instructions from the Corps, but, as I have said, they were usually out of date before they arrived, and most of my tactics I had to invent myself.  I had a plain task, and to fulfil it I had to use what methods the Almighty allowed me.  I hardly slept, I ate little, I was on the move day and night, but I never felt so strong in my life.  It seemed as if I couldn’t tire, and, oddly enough, I was happy.  If a man’s whole being is focused on one aim, he has no time to worry . . .  I remember we were all very gentle and soft-spoken those days.  Lefroy, whose tongue was famous for its edge, now cooed like a dove.  The troops were on their uppers, but as steady as rocks.  We were against the end of the world, and that stiffens a man . . .

Day after day saw the same performance.  I held my wavering front with an outpost line which delayed each new attack till I could take its bearings.  I had special companies for counter-attack at selected points, when I wanted time to retire the rest of the division.  I think we must have fought more than a dozen of such little battles.  We lost men all the time, but the enemy made no big scoop, though he was always on the edge of one.  Looking back, it seems like a succession of miracles.  Often I was in one end of a village when the Boche was in