Now Freddy had seen some Lancers on the evening before, but he was not going to tell the Germans, whatever might happen to him, so he said he had no idea where the British were. “They must be where you have come from,” declared the German officer. But the boy stuck to it that he had not seen them, and the officer at last said: “We are going to keep you a week till you tell me something.” “Of course I was a bit frightened,” said Freddy, “but I had resolved that I would never give away the English. They gave me a meal, and after two hours we started on the march. I had to walk between two German soldiers, and was told that if I ran away I should be shot. At the end of three days we got close to Mons. I had often cycled over the roads we went, and knew the country well. I was again questioned by officers as to where I had seen British troops, but I still said I had never seen any. And then an officer said: ‘We are going to let you go, but you must not come back through German lines.’” They gave him back his bicycle, and two German soldiers took him a mile, and then told him to ride off. CHAPTER IV THE BATTLE OF MONS And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature’s teardrops as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves, Over the unreturning brave,—alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. BYRON. On Sunday, August 23, 1914, there was fought what will rank as one of the great Battles of the Ages. For on that Sunday the whole flower of the German Army, including the pick of their famous cavalry, was hurled against the British Army in the proportion of six to one! I had hoped not to sully with the Kaiser’s now notorious address to his troops the pages of a book in which were to be recorded only gallant deeds. But alone it explains the strong preponderance of numbers at the Battle of Mons. This is what the German Emperor evidently thought to be an inspiring and dignified message to his generals. I must tell you it was issued on August 19, that is, only four days before our first contact with the enemy: “It is my Royal and Imperial command that you concentrate your energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over General French’s contemptible little army.”