I remember very well one day and night of uncommon wretchedness. It was raining heavily and continuously, and in the deluge I and three more men were sent on outpost--to observe and keep our eyes open, and so that we could do that to the best advantage we took up a position on the top of a hayrick. A perfect hurricane was blowing, and the almost solid rain was fairly driven into us; but we stuck it through, and hung on to the top of the haystack till it was dark, then we thankfully got down and went into an open shed for shelter--a building that was just a protection for wheat-stacks. I had had my turn of picketing and was lying down to get a snatch of sleep when I was ordered to go up a road about a mile and a half away, to find out whether our relief had come. So out into the darkness and the wind and rain I staggered and fought my way through what was the worst night for weather that I ever saw. On and on I and my comrades went, looking hard for our relief, but we never saw it, and we waited there till next morning, when we rejoined our brigade. Those were times when there was little rest for the Seaforths, or anybody else. The aeroplanes gave us little chance of rest, and at times they had an uncanny knack of finding us. One day, after a long, hard march, we put into a wood for shelter. A French supply column was already in the wood and doubtless the Germans knew of or suspected this; at any rate a German aeroplane came over us, with the result that in a few minutes we were shelled out. We rested in another part of the wood till it was dark, then we were taken on to billets, but we had to make another move, because we were shelled out again. That was the sort of thing which came along as part of the day’s work; and as part of the day’s work we took it cheerfully. When we got the Germans on the move we took prisoners from time to time. I was on guard over a few prisoners, part of a crowd, when one of them came up to me and to my amazement I recognised him as a German who had worked in Soho Square and used often to go to the same place as myself for dinner--a little shop in Hanway Street, at the Oxford Street end of Tottenham Court Road. The prisoner recognised me at once and I recognised him. To show how ignorant the Germans were of the enemy they were fighting, I may tell you that this man said to me, “If we had known we were fighting the English, I would never have left London!” Was it not strange that the two of us, who had so often met as friends for dinner in the little foreign shop, should meet again as enemies on the banks of the Marne?