We will now quote again from the narrative of the Rev. Owen Spencer Watkins, whose courage was worthy of the army to which he was attached. He had a narrow escape of being taken prisoner. After leaving Villars Sal he learnt from a motor-cyclist who passed them that the Germans had entered on one side of the village as they went out of the other. At Villersan they halted. Horses and men (he said), transport and guns, an endless procession they passed, blackened with grime, bearing evident signs of the past few days of fighting. And behind were the infantry still fighting a rearguard action. But the men were in good spirits; they were retreating, but this was not a defeated army.... The town of Cambrai was now in sight, and we were told that just beyond it, at a place called Le Cateau, was a position we could hold, and here we should entrench and make a stand.... Once I passed through a division of French Cavalry, who greeted me most courteously, and were very curious to know exactly what my duties with the Army were. A great contrast they presented to our khaki-clad troops in their blue and red and gold, but it struck me that such finery was hardly likely to be so serviceable as our more sombre khaki. On the morning of Wednesday, August 26, after four hours’ sleep in the rain, I was awakened by the sound of heavy guns, and rose from my bed of straw to realise that the battle of Le Cateau had begun. As I had slept booted and spurred, no time was wasted in toilet, and I was able at once to ride off to the scene of action, whilst the ambulance wagons and stretcher-bearers were making ready to do likewise. I visited the infantry lining their trenches, but they had not yet come into action. As I talked with them I little thought how many hundreds of these lads of the 14th Infantry Brigade (Manchesters, Suffolks, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, and East Surreys) would be lying low before the end of day. Later I was for a while with the 108th Heavy Battery, whose guns were masked with corn-sheaves to hide them from the German aeroplane, and who even, whilst I was with them, did terrible execution. The great 60-pounder shells were burst with wonderful precision and deadly effect, and before the day was over this battery alone had completely exterminated two batteries of German artillery. My next move was to the 15th Brigade Royal Field Artillery, which had just come into action. The story of these batteries is one of the most moving and heroic in the war, and perhaps some day it will be fully told. The losses amongst both men and horses were appalling, yet still they worked their guns. In one battery only a junior officer and one man was left, but between them they still contrived to keep the gun in action.