"About midnight we reached Estrées, and I asked a staff officer where the 14th Field Ambulance was camped. 'Camped!' he exclaimed. 'Camped! Nobody camps here. Orders are changed and there must be no halt.' Then, as an afterthought, 'What Ambulance did you say?' 'Number 14.' 'Do you belong to it?' 'Yes.' 'Then I congratulate you, for if reports are true, you are all that is left of it: it is said to have been wiped out by shell fire.' I said I thought the reports were, to say the least, exaggerated, and rode on. "Shortly after I heard a familiar voice also asking for the 14th Field Ambulance. It was Major Fawcett, R.A.M.C, who, like myself, had been detached from the Ambulance on special duty. We greeted each other with joy, and for the rest of that awful march had company. "At last we felt we could go no further (remember, in the last four days we had only ten hours' sleep, and three proper meals), and were in danger of dropping out of our saddles from exhaustion. So we dismounted, sat by the roadside holding our horses, and at once were fast asleep. "Two hours later we wakened, dawn was just breaking over the hills, and still the column creaked and groaned its way along the road, more asleep than awake, but still moving. A wonderful triumph of will over human frailty. But at how great a cost to nerve and vitality was revealed by one look at the faces of the men. "I was noticing how worn and gaunt my companion was looking, and was about to remark upon it, but the same thought was in his mind and he forestalled me. 'Isn't it wonderful how quickly this sort of thing tells upon a man? You know, Padre, you look as though you had just got up from a serious illness, and only three days ago you looked as hard as nails, and as fit as a man could be.' "Soon after sunrise we came up with two of our ambulance waggons and one of our filter water-carts. The wounded were in such a state of exhaustion with the long trek, and the awful jolting of the waggons, that Major Fawcett decided to halt and make some beef-tea for them, so rode on ahead to find some farm where water could be boiled. He had hardly gone when a battalion of exhausted infantry came up with us, and as soon as they saw the water-cart, made a dash for it. "Hastily I rode up to them, explained that there was very little water left in the cart, and that little was needed for their wounded comrades. "'I'm thirsty myself,' I said, 'and I'm awfully sorry for you chaps, but you see how it is, the wounded must come first.' "'Quite right, sir,' was the ready response. 'Didn't know it was a hospital water-cart,' and without a murmur they went thirsty along their way."