The pursuit continued during the two following days. Through heavy showers, which gave them a thorough soaking, the Grenadiers marched on the 11th by the way of Priez, Sommelans, Latilly, La Croix, and Breny to Oulchy, where they got into billets, and fires were lit to dry their clothes. Such inhabitants as were left eagerly helped to supply all the men's wants, and placed all they possessed at their disposal. The usual signs of recent German occupation were to be seen in every house. Drawers had been turned out, cupboards ransacked, and tables overturned, and the floors were thickly strewn with such things as the Germans had been unable to take away with them--clothes, smashed gramophone records, broken glasses, and other debris. But, in spite of the pitiable surroundings and their own soaked condition, the officers and men were soon put in the best of spirits by the cheerful fires and the appetising smell of bacon and eggs, put on to cook for them. [Sidenote: Sept. 12.] Next morning's parade was at 5 o'clock, but the town was so crowded with supply wagons that it was 9 before a move could be made. It rained at intervals during the day, and in the evening another steady downpour set in, which once more soaked the men to the skin before they got to their billets at Courcelles, having marched through Beugneux, Arcy, Cuiry-Housse, Lesges, Limé, and Braine. CHAPTER V THE PASSAGE OF THE AISNE (2ND BATTALION) For a week now the Germans had been steadily retiring, and there was no apparent reason why they should stop doing so. Each time they held a position the question naturally arose whether they were really making a determined stand, or whether this was just a case of a rear-guard doing its best to hold up the advance. The only way to find out was to attack them and make them show their dispositions. At the Marne, where it might well have been supposed that the Germans had a good enough position to make a stand, their resistance had proved to be merely in the nature of a rear-guard action. It did not at first dawn on our Army that at the Aisne, on the contrary, the enemy had occupied a carefully chosen and sedulously prepared position which suited their purpose in every way. An ideal position it was, indeed. Sir John French, in his despatch of October 8, 1914, thus describes it: