When they reached the place assigned to them they got out, prepared to lay down and sleep on the roadside, and told each other funny stories to while away the time. One of the last who had come into Compiègne had missed his way. Suddenly he came upon a few Germans whom he mistook at first for English soldiers. He looked more closely, and when only within a few hundred yards he recognised his mistake. He instantly wheeled his van round, and before they were able to open fire he was racing down the road as if devils were behind him. ‘I got my van away all right and I laughed at their popping at me,’ he said. After the vans came the soldiers, headed by the 5th Dragoons. They had blown up everything behind them, railway lines and bridges, and it would be some time before the Germans would come up. The soldiers as they reached Compiègne were in the best of spirits. They had been fighting all the time, killing scores of the enemy as they retired through the woods, and losing hardly a man themselves. The French people in all the villages and at Compiègne received them with a hearty welcome. When they came to an inn or a ‘marchand de vin,’ they were offered any drink in the shop for nothing, or what they liked to give. As a rule the barmen offered them the best wine. The soldiers would smell it, nod their heads, as much as to convey ‘this is good,’ and down it would go. ‘Fine drink that,’ they would say to each other, and march off again. At Compiègne all the townsfolk came out, and exclaimed: ‘What fine men, these English!’ The fact is the people here, as well as at Chantilly, were accustomed to see, as a rule, only English jockeys and stable lads, of less than average size. They had thereby come to imagine that Englishmen mostly were smaller than the French. When they saw the Dragoons and Lancers and the Scottish troops and Highlanders, they wondered, and were beside themselves with admiration. In the shops the English soldiers made it a point to pay for everything they got. Funny scenes were often witnessed. They would select anything they fancied, hold it up in their hands, and ask mutely by a sign ‘How much?’ Sometimes misunderstandings occurred. Tommy Atkins had not yet had time to master the simplicity of French currency. Two of them were buying bread. One paid for his, and the other laid down the same amount, thinking it was all right. The loaf was much bigger, and the baker tried to explain to him that it was two pounds. ‘What,’ exclaimed the indignant trooper, ‘two pounds for a loaf of bread. You are trying it on,’ and out he walked indignantly, clinging to his loaf nevertheless. Finally, it was explained to him what the baker meant, namely, that it weighed two pounds. The soldier at once asked a pal to return and apologise, and, as he said, ‘pay up and tell the tale.’