We had no artillery to speak of, and very few airplanes. If we had had more of the latter, there might have been another story. The Germans seemed to know every move we made, but we were blind. We dropped into a field and killed a bullock, skinned it and were cooking it. There came the roar of a powerful engine; a German plane circled over us and went sailing back, signalling our position. A few minutes later shrapnel fell among us and we went on, some of the men in ambulances. Those that were killed we hurriedly buried, but there was not time even to put improvised wooden crosses at their heads. One of our slightly wounded, in the broad accents of lowland Scotch, cursed the Germans--not for wounding him, but for knocking over his canteen of tea. A hail of flying shrapnel struck down a cook; the men of his section cursed in chorus for the misfortune which meant that hunger would be added to their other miseries. Not once alone did we spring up from eating to fight the Uhlans with rifle fire and bayonet. It happened a dozen times. Whenever the Uhlans came, we fought them off, but always we had to retreat in the end, for the German reserves were numberless while ours scarcely existed. CHAPTER TWO Most of the time while we were dragging our exhausted, diminishing numbers ahead of the German wave of shot and steel, I was on scout duty. For a while, I was "connecting file" between the Black Watch and the Munster Fusiliers who were in rear of us and _almost constantly_ in touch with the enemy. I had more than one narrow escape from capture or death. On one occasion the regiment had been deployed to beat off a flank attack. When we resumed the march I was sent back to get in touch with the Fusiliers. My orders were to go to the rear until I got in touch with them. I was proceeding cautiously along the road when suddenly around a curve something appeared before me. My rifle was at my shoulder ready to fire. Then I recognized what had been a uniform of the Fusiliers. Have you ever read Kipling's "Man Who Came Back"? If you have, you will have a better idea than I can give you of what this human being looked like. His face was covered with blood. One arm hung limply. Just as he made toward me, he fell exhausted by the roadside, like a dog that is spent. Literally, his tongue hung from his mouth. His shoes were cut up and his clothes dangled in ribbons beneath which red gashes showed in his flesh where he had torn it in the barbed-wire fences he had encountered, crossing fields. I asked him what had happened. His lips moved and his breath came in more difficult gasps, but no word could he utter. I wiped his face, and then I recognized in him an officer who had been a crack athlete when the Munsters were in India and against whom I had competed more than once. I pressed my water bottle to his lips. After a few moments he was able to speak. "They are gone!" he gasped; "all of them are gone! By God, they died like men; but--they--died."