Energy books

H. Q.--who never gave us any news and who were far
from our way of life, except when they thwarted us, by petty
restrictions and foolish rules.


VIII

The Commander-in-Chief--Sir John French--received us when we were
first attached to the British armies in the field--a lifetime ago, as
it seems to me now. It was a formal ceremony in the chateau near
St.-Omer, which he used as his own headquarters, with his A. D. C.'s
in attendance, though the main general headquarters were in the town.
Our first colonel gathered us like a shepherd with his flock, counting
us twice over before we passed in. A tall, dark young man, whom I knew
afterward to be Sir Philip Sassoon, received us and chatted pleasantly
in a French salon with folding-doors which shut off an inner room.
There were a few portraits of ladies and gentlemen of France in the
days before the Revolution, like those belonging to that old
aristocracy which still existed, in poverty and pride, in other
chateaus in this French Flanders.


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