The Cyclists were still five hundred yards away from us in their retreat, but our cannon was again getting warm and, besides this, the extractor was dirty and some of the balls failed. We fell back a second time and, behind a hedge, the changing of the cannon again took place. This time we had the additional complication of changing the extractor. The enemy took advantage of this for advancing at full speed. "Quick! quick! is everything ready?" The car fell back. A hundred yards from the bridge there was a good place for it. From there we could see for five hundred yards along both sides of the route skirting the Laak. This time we were keenly on the watch. We no longer replied to the firing intended for us: it was no use wasting munition haphazard. The chief gunner to the right, and I to the left, watched the groups which arrived on the bank of the river. Rrann!... and there was a charge[6] for each group. How many fell like that! It was good firing, with certain result. And there was no hurry now, so that the cannon only got gradually warm. The combat had been going on for forty minutes. The Cyclists must have reached Tremeloo. There were still the wounded ones to look after. Berlaymont and I got down and picked up six or seven of them. We placed them on the chests, on the wings, on the platform, at the back, and even on the hood. This exasperated the Boches, who fired on us furiously. We now made off, but on the Tremeloo road, we came across about twenty poor wounded men, dragging themselves along in the most lamentable way. They stretched out their hands to us, beseeching to be picked up. It was impossible to abandon them. Six volunteers of the Cyclist rear-guard offered their services. They discovered a cart and an old horse which, by some miracle, had remained among the ruins of a farm and, whilst they were doing this, the machine-gun received certain indispensable repairs. The car then started once more towards Werchter, followed by the cart transformed into an ambulance. About one hundred yards in front of the bridge, a wounded man was lying across the road. He begged to be picked up at once. We fastened him to the platform and thought no more about him, for the balls were raining down again. The Boches had crossed the bridge and we had to drive them back, so that we could pick up the wounded men. We advanced slowly, giving our enemies a hellish fire. They were running from hedge to hedge, quite near to us.