With The Immortal Seventh Division | Page 6

pillow--so it seemed--when a great knocking at the door aroused me with a start
from vivid dreams of home, as an orderly entered the room with the alarming statement
that the column was moving off in ten minutes. It was seven o'clock, and I felt inclined
for another twelve hours in bed; there were no ablutions that morning. A flying leap into
my clothes; a most indiscriminate packing of my valise, which I left my servant
struggling with, in an inexperienced attempt to roll it up correctly, and I swallowed a cup
of coffee which my kind hostess had provided for me (why is coffee always so hot when
one is in a hurry?), and I mounted my horse in the nick of time to fall in with my column
as it moved off.
It was a long weary march over a very flat country, intersected with dykes, and only
broken by the ubiquitous poplar trees; and one had ample time to think, and sometimes
doze, as we marched along on our twenty-five mile trek. At the midday halt, a little
diversion enlivened the proceedings in the shape of pulling two bogged horses out of a
narrow cut where they had been 'watered.' We managed with the help of ropes and planks
to get the poor brutes on to terra firma again, more dead than alive.
Then on and on, hour after hour, halting ten minutes each hour for a needed breather and
rest, until Ostend hove in sight. Visions of a comfortable billet rose before one's
luxurious mind, but no such luck; right through the city we marched, finding the station
square crammed with terror-stricken and most wretched-looking refugees; until, some
four miles out, we lighted upon the most filthy and forsaken place to be found on the map

of civilization--Steene. The houses were so vile and malodorous, that it was with great
reluctance the O.C. allowed the men to enter. By this time it was very dark and very cold,
and it was with purely animal instinct that we found the way to our mouths in the
darkness, and tried to make believe that we enjoyed the biscuit and bully beef which
formed our rations.
Then came the somewhat important question of where to sleep. I deemed myself among
the fortunate in securing a stretcher, and dossed in a transport wagon; a tired man might
have a worse bed than that, and I slept the sleep of the weary and, as I would fain hope,
of the righteous.
The following morning, as it seemed likely that we should remain at Steene for at least
another day, I cast round for something more comfortable in the way of a billet, and had
secured three rooms at the worthy Burgomaster's for the O.C., Mr. Jaffray and myself,
and was about to enjoy a more or less comfortable tea in the open, when an orderly rode
up with orders to trek back to Bruges.
In a few minutes the camp was struck, and once more we moved on. I felt that I could
enter into the spirit of the well-known refrain--
The brave old Duke of York, He had ten thousand men. He marched them up to the top of
a hill, And he marched them down again. And when they were up, they were up; And
when they were down, they were down: And when they were half-way up the hill, They
were neither up or down.
As we retraced our steps through Ostend, we found a large and acclaiming crowd lining
the route. As I rode just behind the Gordons, who were marching with their usual
swinging step, I was amused to hear a Belgian woman ask her friend, 'And who are
those?' pointing to the Highlanders. 'Oh,' was the reply, 'those are the wives of the
English soldiers.' The gay Gordons were greatly incensed on my setting before them their
new status.
In the centre of the city I came across my friend Peel (padré of the 22nd Brigade; he has
since won a military cross, and gained the universal love of his men by his gallant
conduct and splendid ministry). He had somehow or other lost his Brigade, and being
thus stranded, had slung his batman up behind him on his horse and was proceeding with
unruffled dignity in the direction of the line of march.
It was late at night and raining as it seldom rains in dear old England, when we splashed
ankle deep in water, over the cobbled streets of Bruges, the stones being too slippery to
permit of riding. Hungry and tired we slouched along, until we came to the Monastery of
St. Xavier, at St. Michel, some two miles out of the city. Never shall I forget the kindness
extended to us by