A battery would manoeuvre into a position, come into action, and pound away for a quarter of an hour. Then, at the right moment (and it called for the nicest judgment to select that moment) four guns would be run back, limbered up, and got away, while the remaining couple would continue an intermittent fire to cover the retirement. These in turn would slip away--if they could. The casualties under conditions like these must, of course, be very heavy indeed. That they were not infinitely heavier was due to the splendid use the men made of the ground, taking cover and so on, and to the noble spirit of self-sacrifice for comrades which animated every unit. Thirdly, the G.O.C. had to remember that he was not playing a lone hand, but that he had to consider the retirement of the First Corps on his right. He had to play the match for his side. Just at the moment Jessop, in the person of Sir Douglas Haig, was in with him, and Jessop had to hit out against time to make the runs while Leveson-Gower (Smith-Dorrien) kept up his wicket at the other end. And, fourthly, to carry on the metaphor, when Jessop was forced to "retire hurt" Leveson-Gower had to begin to hit at just that moment when he felt that he had "collared the bowling." In other words, the G.O.C., having held a certain line of defence for a couple of hours or so, had to judge to a nicety the exact moment when he had, for the time, broken the enemy's attack sufficiently to permit of retirement another two miles to the next position. Those four points, then, constitute in very broad outline the task which General Smith-Dorrien had to perform. Our people have not been slow to recognise how magnificently he and his men accomplished it. The enemy were now, by accident or design, beginning to drive in a wedge at Frameries between the two corps. Always a serious situation, especially when, as now, units had become very scattered in the gradual retirement. The gap was filled to some extent by the 5th Brigade, which General Smith-Dorrien borrowed from the First Corps. * * * * * Impressions gleaned from the other side are always of interest. Another German officer, whom we got a few days later, gave me his opinion of the British work somewhat like this. "All our text-books," he said, "about rear-guard actions will have to be rewritten, and you have certainly taught us a lesson. It has been just like advancing into a wall of fog. The fog is elastic enough when one enters it, but soon it clings all round and chokes you. We pushed in all right, but never came out at the other side." Personally, I felt inclined to apply the metaphor the reverse way, and that is how the men felt it. The dense, overpowering cloud rolling down, the battling against it with impotent arms, and the fog penetrating into every gap in the lines.