It has been shown that Maxse's Eighteenth Corps, covering the St. Quentin front, maintained its whole position on March 21, thanks to the splendid conduct of the three battalions in the forward line, and to the stout resistance in the zone of battle. It has also been told how the Sixty-first Division, the most northern unit, withdrew on the afternoon of March 22, very attenuated but still full of fight, to a prepared position between Vaux and Villévêque. At 4 P.M. that day the three brigades, or what was left of them, were in line 1500 yards east of Beauvais, the 184th being in the centre, with the 182nd on its right, and the 183rd on its left. As they faced their pursuers they could plainly see the Germans pouring in successive waves from Atilly. The central brigade was commanded by General the Hon. Robert White, one of two gallant brothers who sowed their military wild oats in the Jameson Raid, and this unit, reduced now to a mere handful of {157} Gloucesters, Berkshires, and Oxfords, was exposed to a scourging fire of shrapnel, which further thinned their ranks, their General being one of the casualties. No field ambulances were available at the moment, and as General White was led away badly wounded he saw the German cavalry breaking into the south side of Beauvais, while a large artillery dump west of the village was exploded by the enemy fire. The whole situation was chaotic, but the British infantry still hung together, retreating slowly and turning continually upon their pursuers. Some twenty German aeroplanes were quartering the district like so many fierce hawks, and diving with great daring from time to time into the very streets of the village, while the British falling back into cover fired up at them with their rifles and light machine-guns. Two of them came crashing down upon the roofs of the houses. It was rumoured that the enemy had already got close to Ham upon the right rear of the division, and they were round the left flank in the region of Holnon Wood. There was little artillery support available, for sixty per cent of the forward guns had been taken or destroyed in Holnon Wood, and the remaining batteries were getting away with their reduced teams, so that the retreat of the infantry was correspondingly slow in order to cover the withdrawal. In the north the Scotsmen of the 183rd Brigade were moving back near Villescholles in touch with the 72nd Brigade of the Twenty-fourth Division, both of them being much helped in their retirement by the 11th Hussars. All along the line the Germans were pressing very closely, but the Sixty-first kept wonderfully steady, though at Beauvais, where Colonel Wetherall had taken over the command when {158} General White was wounded, the two parties were continually intermingled, so ardent was the pursuit and so leisurely the retreat. So mixed were the combatants that Major Howitt, brigade-major of the 184th, was dragged out from among his men, and