On to the bridge he climbed: saw our lads clustered thick as bees in the fo'c'sle and lower deck. Up went his cap into the air, tears sprang to his eyes. "Vivent les Anglais!" he shouted, "vive l'Angleterre! A--ah" (with an instinct of triumph), "ça va bien. Ils arrivent." How the lads yelled in answer. "Cheer-o, moossoo. Veeve France! 'Who's your lady friend?' 'For he's a jolly good fellow,'"--and other pertinent observations. Then, to my astonishment, they burst into the "Marseillaise." How and where they had learned it I have no idea. But sing it they did, and very well too. They took that little curly bit in the middle, where a B flat comes when you least expect it, just like an old hunter clearing a stiff post-and-rails. And that old chap stood on the bridge and mopped his eyes, and didn't care who saw him do it. The English had really come to stand by his beloved France. _Comme ça va bien!_ That was the first hint we had of the reception which awaited us. You picture the transport steaming slowly up river between the high, wooded banks. Little houses, such as Peter Pan might have built for Wendy, seem to sway dizzily in the tree-tops. Out on to the verandas, down to the river path run the women and children, and the few old men who remain. Everyone carries a little flag; not the French tricolour, but the British Jack--or rather an excellent substitute. Dimly one can see the waving hands, faintly across the water echo the treble voices. But know now what it means, and gallantly our lads respond to this welcome of our future hosts, who, with true French courtesy, have met their guests at the very entrance gates. Far up the hill-side, close under the ridge, there nestles a tiny cottage. A blot of deep crimson staining the deeper green of the trees makes me take out my binoculars. The good house-wife, with no British flag available, yet determined to do honour to her country's allies, has taken the red tablecloth, has stitched long bands of white across it to form a St. Andrew's Cross, and flung it proudly across the balustrade. What monarch ever had truer-hearted welcome from his own people? Well, the sight brought a lump to the throat of at least one Englishman. And so slowly we steamed up the historic river. France had indeed flung wide her gates in welcome. Here we found ourselves moving in a small procession of transports. Greetings swung across from one ship to the next, to combine and roar out a British answer to our French friends on shore. Ah! but it was good to feel that Britain had not failed France, though the obligation were no more than a moral one. It was good to be an Englishman that day; good to feel that Englishmen then in France could now look Frenchmen squarely in the face and say: "You thought we were going to stand aside, didn't you? Well, you see we are coming in with you and you can bet that means that we intend to see it through." Yes, one felt proud as never before.