When the R.T.O. had gone we went along the line to carry out the orders we had received. Having been explicitly told that the stream was poisoned and not fit to drink, and that all fires must be lit on the right side of the line and not on the left, some of the men proceeded to light fires on the wrong side of the railway and to fill their bottles from the stream. Having put these matters right by standing about and yelling at the offenders, and things having been put more or less in shape for the night, Mulligan and I went off into the town. The town which lay deep down in a valley was in pitch darkness. There was no sign of life in the streets, except in the market square where some wagons were parked and a group of soldiers were sitting round the embers of a fire. Now and again large, silent motor-cars with officers wrapped up to the chin in overcoats and mufflers glided through. One of the men by the wagons told us that Sir John French had been in the town half an hour ago, had a quick consultation with some general officers, and passed on. In spite of the darkness, quiet, and absence of signs of activity, one felt somehow, as one stood in that market square with the shadowy wagons and group of men round the fire, that one had crossed the border and come into the zone of war. Railways were done with now and the infantry must take to their feet. In view of certain reports we had heard about officers being picked off by specially detailed snipers, Mulligan and I had decided that at the first opportunity we would get rid of our brown leather belts and put on the web equipment worn by the men. Accordingly, when we got to the market square, we asked if there was any ordnance store in the town. A soldier directed us to a house at the corner of the square. We knocked on the door, and after a little difficulty roused the storeman, who took us into a large room where a quantity of clothing, equipment, and rifles collected from the dead, were piled on the floor. The storeman was a Royal Field Artilleryman, and he told us he was one of three survivors of a battery which had been left to fight a desperate rearguard action in the retreat from Mons--it was the battery in which all but one gun were put out of action. The man had a subdued manner and was reluctant to speak much of the engagement. To us, who had not yet seen a shell burst, this meeting with a man who had been through so much fighting was significant. We took our web equipment and made our way back to the train.