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I stood by the side of the
colonel, who was in a gruff mood.
"It looks like rain," he said, sniffing the air. "It will probably
rain like hell when the battle begins."
I think he was killed somewhere by Fosse 8. The two comrades in the
Scots Guards were badly wounded. One of the young brothers was killed
and the other maimed. I found their names in the casualty lists which
filled columns of The Times for a long time after Loos.


III

The town of Bethune was the capital of our army in the Black Country
of the French coal-fields. It was not much shelled in those days,
though afterward--years afterward--it was badly damaged by long-range
guns, so that its people fled, at last, after living so long on the
edge of war.
Its people were friendly to our men, and did not raise their prices
exorbitantly. There were good shops in the town--"as good as Paris,"
said soldiers who had never been to Paris, but found these plate-glass
windows dazzling, after trench life, and loved to see the "mamzelles"
behind the counters and walking out smartly, with little high-heeled
shoes.


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