I tore along to Venizel, and slowing down at the bridge shouted the news to the officer in charge--full speed across the plain to Bucy, and caring nothing for the sentries' shouts, on to St Marguerite. I dashed into the general's bedroom and aroused him. Almost before I had arrived the general and his brigade-major--both in pyjamas--were issuing commands and writing messages. Sleepy and amazed orderlies were sent out at the double. Battalion commanders and the C.R.E. were summoned. I started back for D.H.Q. with an acknowledgment, and rattling through the village came out upon the plain. Over Conde bridge an ochreous, heavy dawn broke sullenly. There was no noise of firing to tell me that the men of our right brigade were making a desperate resistance to a fierce advance. A mile from Serches I passed a field-ambulance loaded up for instant flight; the men were standing about in little groups talking together, as if without orders. At Headquarters I found that a despatch rider had been sent hot-foot to summon two despatch riders, who that night were with the corps, and others to every unit. Everybody carried the same command--load up and be ready to move at a moment's notice. Orders to move were never sent. Our two ghastly sentinels still held the bridge. It was a SCARE. The tale that we heard at the time was the tale of a little German firing--a lost patrol of ours, returning by an unauthorised road, mistaken in the mist for Germans--a verbal message that had gone wrong. As for the lieutenant who--it was said--first started the hare, his name was burnt with blasphemy for days and days. The only men who came out of it well were some of our cyclists, who, having made their nightly patrol up to the bridge, returned just before dawn to D.H.Q. and found the Division trying to make out that it had not been badly frightened. I did not hear what really happened at the bridge that night until I published my paper, "The Battle of the Aisne," in the May 'Blackwood.' Here is the story as I had it from the officer principally concerned:-- Conde bridge was under our control by shell-fire alone, so that we were obliged to patrol its unpleasant neighbourhood by night. For this purpose an "officer's patrol" was organised (in addition to the "standing patrol" provided by the Cyclists) and supplied every night by different battalions. So many conflicting reports were received nightly about the bridge that the officer who told me the story was appointed Brigade Patrolling Officer. He established himself in a certain wood, and on the night in question worked right up beyond Conde bridge--until he found a burning house about 200 yards beyond the bridge on the south side of it. In the flare of the house he was surprised to discover Germans entrenched in an old drain on the British side of the river. He had unknowingly passed this body of the enemy.