Two guns--with three horses each to draw them. There are still four drivers left, and there are still half a dozen gunners. On the first limber ride a subaltern and the sergeant-major, and by the gun walk another sergeant and the quartermaster-sergeant. That is the battery. On the second limber three men sit, swaying dizzily. A captain of a cavalry regiment and two privates of a Scottish regiment. Here marches a battalion of the Guards. Two days ago it went into action perhaps 1,100 strong. Uncover your head once again as it passes, for these men too have looked Death in the face. At the head there paces slowly an ammunition mule. On it, wearing a peasant's slouch hat, with breeches cut off above the knees, and with left arm held close by a rough bandage, there rides the colonel. Count the men as they march past in fours: 80, 120, 160, 180, 220. No, that is the next regiment you are counting in. Just 200! That is the tale of them. Blackened by dust and powder, bearded, breeches cut short like those of their commanding officer, the few puttees that are left to them wrapped round their feet for boots--otherwise bits of sacking or cloth, bloody bandages round heads or arms, some with hats like the colonel's, most with none at all slowly they limp by. And, as they pass, the A.S.C. drivers silently offer such biscuits or bread as they have. God, how they wolf the food! The colonel turns round on his "charger," and in a hoarse shout: "Battalion! 'Tention! Pull yourselves together, lads; a French village!" Ah, the pride of them! The glory of race and blood! This is not the Mons country, with its blood-soaked memories; 'tis the Horse Guards Parade, and we're Trooping the Colour! The click of rifles coming to the slope runs down the ranks. The fours line by magic as the men straighten themselves; it is a new regiment, marching into action, which the French villagers see pass before them. "Defeat? Why, this is part of the joke! Just to draw the Germans on into the trap." And at a word they would have turned to charge an army corps. And so the regiments pass. And as the last of the Division goes through, lights twinkle from the tiny windows of the cottages and the great yellow moon climbs slowly over the poplar trees. An A.S.C. sergeant mounts a lorry with a copy of the Paris _Daily Mail_ in his hand, and entertains an ever-growing audience with the news that the Russians have invaded Germany and are marching on Berlin. "It will be all over by Christmas--but I'd 'ave liked just one slap at them Germans, so as I could tell the missis," says a late bus-driver. But on the outskirts of the crowd the Staff officer is talking to the A.S.C. captain: "I've no orders for you, but you've evidently been forgotten. You ought to have had your park fifteen miles farther south by now. Things are bad, and there will be the hell of a scrap round here to-morrow morning. I should clear out if I were you."