The French soldier, as I have said, is strangely candid in the analysis of his emotions, and is not ashamed of confessing his fears. I remember a young lieutenant of Dragoons who told me of the terror which took possession of him when the enemy's shrapnel first burst above his head. "As every shell came whizzing past, and then burst, I ducked my head and wondered whether it was this shell which was going to kill me, or the next. The shrapnel bullets came singing along with a 'Tue! Tue!' Ah, that is a bad song! But most of all I feared the rifle-shots of an infantry attack. I could not help glancing sideways at the sound of that 'Zip! zip! zip!' There was something menacing and deadly in it, and one cannot dodge the death which comes with one of these little bullets. It is horrible!" And yet this man, who had an abscess in his leg after riding for weeks in his saddle and who had fought every day and nearly every night for a fortnight, was distressed because he had to retire from his squadron for awhile until his leg healed. In five days at the most he would go back again to hell--hating the horror of it all, fearing those screeching shells and hissing bullets, yet preferring to die for France rather than remain alive and inactive when his comrades were fighting. Imagine the life of one of these cavalrymen, as I heard it described by many of them in the beginning of the war. They were sent forward on a reconnaissance--a patrol of six or eight. The enemy was known to be in the neighbourhood. It was necessary to get into touch with him, to discover his strength, to kill some of his outposts, and then to fall back to the division of cavalry and report the facts. Not an easy task! It quite often happened that only one man out of six came back to tell the tale, surprised at his own luck. The German scouts had clever tricks. One day near Béthune they played one of them--a favourite one. A friend of mine led six of his dragoons towards a village where Uhlans had been seen. They became visible at a turn of the road, and after firing a few shots with their carbines turned tail and fled. The French dragoons gave chase, across some fields and round the edge of a quiet wood. Suddenly at this point the Uhlans reined in their horses and out of the wood came the sudden shattering fire of a German quickfirer. Fortunately it was badly aimed, and my friend with his six dragoons was able to gallop away from that infernal machine which had so cleverly ambushed them. There was no rest for the cavalry in those first days of the war. The infantry had its bivouac every day, there was rest sometimes in the trenches, but the cavalry had to push on always upon new adventures to check the enemy in his advance.