“I say, old pals, don’t forget your sweethearts,” cried a little street girl standing on the edge of the foot-path, and that was the last word I heard as Rheims became more and more indistinct in the darkness, whilst we pushed on towards the east. CHAPTER II ACROSS THE BORDER INTO BELGIUM—LIFE ON ACTIVE SERVICE FROM DAY TO DAY—AFTER THE GERMANS HAD PASSED THROUGH—THE RETREAT 6th August to 5th September, 1914 It was on the 6th of August that we crossed the frontier into the Walloon district of Belgium at Muno, to bring succour to the Belgians whose territory had just been violated by the German Army. In turning over my diary, I select this incident from among many others and stop to describe it, for it seems but right to recall the enthusiastic and touching welcome with which the whole people greeted us—a people now, alas, crushed under the German heel. We were welcomed with open arms—they gave without counting the cost, they threw open their doors to us and could not do enough for the French who had come to join forces with them and bring them succour. There is not a trooper in my regiment, not a soldier in our whole army, who does not recall that day with feelings of profound emotion. From the time we left Sedan, our ears still ringing with the cheers that had sent us on our way from Rheims, we received the heartiest of welcomes and good wishes at every village we passed through, but once across the frontier we were acclaimed—prematurely, as it turned out—as veritable conquerors. Cavalry on the march, squadron after squadron, has a marked effect on people, and takes the semblance of an invincible rampart against which any enemy must go down. After seventeen hours in the saddle, with helmet, lance, carbine, sword and full kit, now by a night-time more than disagreeable by reason of an icy cold fog, now under a tropical sun which scorched us, all the while in a cloud of dust, tormented by swarms of midges and horse-flies which hung about us, and tortured by the sight of cherry trees heavy with fruit, which hung over the road, but the branches of which were out of our reach, we approached the frontier. On the road we passed all the vehicles in the district which had been requisitioned by the military, interminable convoys of them, amongst which, irrespective of class, were humble peasant carts, old-fashioned shaky barouches, motor-cars, with the crests of their owners blazoned on the doors, all filled with oats and forage. Aëroplanes followed us and passed ahead of us flying all-out towards the east. Every now and again we had to draw to the side of the road to allow streams of motor omnibuses drawn from the streets of Paris, filled with chasseurs[2] and infantry, to pass by; and our teeth crunched the fine dust that we incessantly breathed.