A bugle sounded.----Those that were left of the Uhlans galloped off. The little machine guns had done their work. Our attention was then attracted to a heavy fire, directed from some unknown quarter upon a near-by field in which was confined a large herd of light brown cattle, their colour identical with that of our khaki uniforms. The animals were milling about madly; a dozen of them already were down and others were falling each moment. Here was one of the humours of war. We laughed, believing that the Germans were firing upon the dying beasts, mistaking them for us--"The Ladies from Hell," as they called us. The Scots Greys, which regiment had come up at this critical moment to occupy the high ground on our right flank about six hundred yards away, through the fierceness of their enfilading fire, managed to keep the enemy at a standstill and so allowed the Black Watch to retreat to safety. We owed our lives to kind fate in bringing the Scots Greys to our timely aid, and to them all honour! But for them we should have met the fate of the Munster Fusiliers. Crawling on their bellies, some of our men went out and brought in those of the Black Watch who were lying wounded. The others we left, for their own men would be there presently. For us, it was retreat again. After traversing ditches, ravines and barbed-wire fences, we finally assembled on the road. The artillery was beginning to pound once more. We had to trudge on, watching for the next attack, planting one bleeding foot before another, with nobody knew how many days of forced marching before us--marching (so we thought) to let the Russians get to Berlin. I don't think anything else would have induced us to resume our retreat after the brush with the Uhlans. At evening we found ourselves at the village of Oise about six miles from the abovementioned scene. As we arrived at the bridge over the River Oise, the engineers who were on the other side, and who had fused the bridge, shouted to us to keep back, but our colonel gave us the order to double. We had cleared the bridge by about only two hundred yards, when it blew up into atoms! After trudging, mostly uphill, in a downpour of rain, we reached a place called Guise at 2 A.M. Here we managed to get some food. I was glad enough to throw my waterproof sheet over me and fall asleep. On being awakened, I felt as though I had slept for weeks, but found it had only been for one hour and twenty minutes. We then received some "gunfire" and our _first_ issue of rum. We resumed the march. On arriving at La Grange, the Camerons, or what was left of them, joined us, taking the place of the annihilated Fusiliers in our brigade. We were so tired that night that I could have slept on a bed of nails, points up, but we had not been in our billets very long when we were ordered out, as the outpost had reported the approach of Uhlans in considerable numbers.