At intervals a more substantial equipage came down the road-sometimes a huge farm-waggon drawn by three or four horses, with cattle following, and the whole contents of the house stacked within. The old grandmother and the children could be seen perched insecurely on top of the pile, the rest were walking. Sometimes it was overloaded pony-chaise, a baker's cart, or even & small motor-ear. But as one looked down the slope of the road, it obvious that these cases of comfortable travel were rare: the mass of the stream was made up of wretched poverty on foot, utterly hopeless and homeless. an or and pans tied together with kept gazing peaceably at him string, and parcels innumer- as they trundled slowly by. able, made up the usual luggage. Nearly every one seemed to have a dog, Very often a oow followed, tugged along by a rope round her horns. Every few minutes the man with the wheelbarrow stopped, sat to rest on one handle while his wife sat on the other, then readjusted the strap over his shoulders and started pushing again. One very old man I saw whose barrow, as he wheeled it, served as arm-chair for his invalid wife: she sat there comfortably enough, enough, hands folded in her lap and feet dangling, looking up at him as he toiled along with the wistful, patient gaze of the infirm who must rely on another's strength and kindness. What was she thinking of, I wonder? How often had that old couple moved house together-how many years had she trusted him to lift her? And at last her musings had come to this-How could the vigorous husband of her youth, now that he was so enfeebled and broken, find the force to move them both? As his body swayed she caught a glimpse, behind his shoulder, of the frail spire of the cathedral orowning the black mass of its nave. What a little way they had come, and with how much exertion! But as they had nowhere to go, perhaps it did not matter much. There was desperation and gloom in his unshaven face, but the poor old wife Inside the town of Amiens every shop was shuttered. No trams were running; no cafés were open. It would have seemed a city of the dead were it not for some household still delayed in its departure, or some slinking, sinister figure waiting perhaps for nightfall to begin marauding. Every one, in and out of town, seemed intent on his own problem. No one was conversing. Returning in the late afternoon along the same road, I was struck by the difference which the lapse of a few hours had made in these pilgrimsany gaiety they ever had field "This is a bad business," said I to my driver. "What if it were in our country, sir?" he replied. amongst them had disappeared. old. Farther on, The March wind had opposed artillery column was moving them all day; it was turning slowly west. Whether army colder, and after sundown there regulations permit old women would be frost. Many had to ride on limbered waggons I already realised that they could know not-but there they find no roof to shelter them were. that night, and in every hollow little parties were camping as best they could on the ground. Some were sitting at the roadside in the dull torpor of misery, staring at the load they now found too heavy to lift. Under a hedge a mother was baring her breast to give her infant its last meal. Two old women were frenziedly trying to repair a barrow that had pitched their odds and ends into the road. The singing of a drunken wanton frightened a boy of six, and he buried his face in his mother's dusty skirt till the woman slapped him and dragged him Some of the very people whem I had met in the morning I overtook at dusk-they seemed to have covered little ground. Others, doubtless, had reached their friends or found shelter. on. There were British troops on the road-tramping back in twos and threes to restbillets, and tired enough themselves. But all along the road, and every few yards along it, you saw a soldier wheeling some woman's barrow or perambulator, or carrying a child on his shoulder. Heavy motorlorries, marked "W.D.," and each bearing the emblem of its unit, came rolling by, and out of the hood behind peered in the gathering darkness a oluster of tired faces, young and We stopped our car now and again. "There are three places, Madame, or perhaps four if there are children." I had seen little sign of any group of these people helping another group, but when middle-aged woman, who seemed to be leading another, was invited, she accepted for her sister who was blind, but said that if we would wait there was a blind man with two children not far behind, and she would continue to walk if we would take them too. So the two blind and the two children clambered in, and were left in the appointed meeting-place in the village five miles on. It then appeared that the two blind people did not know one another. A New Zealander came to the rescue, and promised to stand by them until their friends on foot arrived. So we left them surrounded by their their bundles. "How long did it take, sir, this course?" asked the blind girl. "About ten minutes." She gave a a little gasp of pleasure, and you could see that she felt she now had one experience of life that even her sister, who could see, might envy. such an When the car turned at the The moon, shining full above bend of the road and mounted the distant cathedral, can from the river valley, the seldom have looked down on groups of refugees had all been aceumulation of left behind. Many, many were crouching in the undergrowth of the woods behind us, vainly trying to keep warm in spite of the bitter wind. The very young and the very old could hardly survive such a night; all alike were innocent of any part or lot in the crime from which they were suffering. That night the Kaiser telegraphed to his Empress: "My troops continued their glorious advance, driving the enemy before them. God is with us." THE WAR OFFICE IN WAR TIME. BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR C. E. CALLWELL, K.C.B. SOME day, no doubt, an tolerable nuisance, but one had illuminating record of what to lie. What else could one the War Office achieved in do? transforming this country into a great military Power under the inspired, if unorthodox, leadership of Lord Kitchener, will make its appearance. The time has not arrived for divulging many matters in connection with its methods and its procedure. But a few tales of the lighter kind, and some experiences undergone in early days by an official who spent four years within its precincts and under its shadow, may perhaps be told even now without impropriety. Called up-most unexpectedly to preside over a very large and not unimportant military department in Whitehall when the mobilisation summonses were issued, I found myself confronted at the very outset by an unexpected difficulty. Working on rollers on the walls of my spacious office there were huge maps of the prospective scenes of operations, and in particular there Was one of vast dimensions portraying what even then was called the Western Front. The Headquarters Staff of the Expeditionary Force thought fit to spend their time in my apartment, olambering on and off a table facing this map, disoussing strategical problems in penetrating whispers, and occasionally expressing an earnest hope that they were not a nuisance. They were an in Moreover, as hour to hour passed, and His Majesty's Government could not make up its mind to give the word "Go" to the Expeditionary Force, the language of its Headquarters Staff becamewell, the less that is said about that language the better. It was not easy to concentrate one's attention upon questions arising in the performance of novel duties in in a time of emergeney under such distraoting conditions, and it was a genuine relief when the party took itself off to France. My responsibilities turned out to be of a most varied nature, covering pretty well the whole field of endeavour, from drafting documents bearing upon operations-subjects for the information of the very elect, down to returning to him by King's Messenger the teeth which a well-known staff officer had inadvertently left behind him at his olub when returning to the front from short leave. The Intelligence Department was under my control, and this caused me to be much sought after in the early days-to be almost snowed under indeed with applications and recommendations for the post of "Intelligence Officer." Qualifications for this particular class of employment turned out to be of a most varied kind. One gentleman, who was declared to be a veritable jewel, was described as a pianist, fitted out with "technique almost equal to a professional." The leading characteristic of another candidate appeared to be his liability to fits. Algy, "a dear boy and so good-looking," had spent a couple of months in Paris after leaving Eton a year or two back. This sounds terribly like petticoat influence; but resisting petticoat influence is, I can assure you, child's play compared to resisting Parliamentary influence. For good, straightforward, unblushing, ing, and were at large, heading without escort or orders for a water-area known to be mined by both sides, and where enemy destroyers and similar pests were apt unexpectedly to make their appearance. Fortunately the panic was of short duration, because on returning to the office after dinner one learnt that the straying vessels had both fetched up on the Goodwins-luckily about low-water and were under control again. It was about that juncture that an eminent British statesman appeared like a bolt from the blue in a historic Continental city that was imperilled shan't-take-ne-for-an-answer by the approach of the devasjobbery, give me the M.P. They are magnificent in their hardihood. During the earlier months of the great conflict, duties were not carried out at the War Office exactly on exactly on the lines contemplated by the Esher Committee as mellowed by later experience, and it was somewhat disconcerting for the Director of Military Operations to learn quite by accident one day that a force was to be despatched to the Western Theatre of Theatre of War, which was not to be under Sir J. French's orders-at least for the time being. What turned out to be a somewhat tragio episode was not without some little comic relief. There was consternation in Whitehall one evening just before the dinner hour, when tidings arrived that a souple of the transports oonveying this force to its destination had passed the rendezvous where the convoy was muster tating Hun. There was encouragement in his gestures, victory in his pose, fire in his eye. "Que veut dono dire cette uniforme qu'il porte, monsieur le ministre?" inquired an inexpressibly interested citizen of a British staff officer, whe enjoyed the good fortune to be present on this great occasion. "C'est, vous savez,' rejoined the staff officer, puffed up with patriotic pride at the spectacle and knowing the language, "le frère ainé de la Trinité." "Mais quelle position extraordinaire," murmured the citizen, more impressed than ever. I was occasionally called upon to attend meetings of the War Council after the first two or three months, and fairly often when the Cabinet grew in numbers up to twentythree, and when the War Council expanded, more or less pari passu, into the "Dardanelles Committee." Pretty well the whole lot of them belonged |