house and garden belonging to one M. Durez, a very civil little man, head of some local mining concern. There was a Madame Durez too, plump and good-natured, and a girl and a boy, and they were profuse in their hospitality. The only drawback about the meals, excellent as they were, was the appalling length of time occupied in their preparation and consumption; it was almost impossible to get away from them, even though there was so much to do.

So much was there to be done that I feel now as though we had been there a week, or at least three days; but on looking at my diary I find we arrived there at midday on Saturday the 22nd, and left at midnight on Sunday the 23rd.

On the Saturday afternoon there were rumours of the Germans being on the other side of the Mons-Condé Canal, not far off. The 13th and 14th Brigades were in front of us, strung out and holding the Canal line, ourselves being in Divisional Reserve. Where the exact left of the 5th Division was I cannot remember at this moment, but I am sure that it was not farther west than Pommeroeul bridge, with, I believe, French or English cavalry on its left.

Saturday afternoon was spent in studying the ground in our front and looking to the approaches and the arrangements for the Brigade. Our front was of course well covered, but there were numerous little matters to be seen to and a certain amount of confabulation with the Divisional Staff, which lived in the midst of a perpetual va-et-vient at the railway station at Dour. Our horses were picketed out in M. Durez's garden and the grubby little fields close by, and the Signal section and all the vehicles were stowed away there as best could be arranged; but all was enclosed, cramped, and unhandy, and the difficulty was to get a clear space anywhere. I walked with M. Durez in the evening to a tiny mound in his garden, from which he assured me a good view could be got; but although the sunset and colouring through the haze was rather picturesque, one couldn't see much. Durez was very apprehensive about his family and himself, and was most urgent in his inquiries as to what was going to happen. I could not tell him much beyond the rumour that the German force in front was reported not to be very big, and I advised him to stick it out as long as he could; but he was restless, with good reason as it turned out, and settled next day to take himself and his family away whilst there was yet time.

Aug. 23rd.

Next morning I got orders to go with Lieut.-Col. Tulloch, the Divisional Commanding Royal Engineer, to select a defensive position and entrench it. We got into a car, and went buzzing about in front of Boussu and round to the right as far as Wasmes; but I never saw such a hopeless place. There was no field of fire anywhere except to the left, just where the railway crossed the Boussu road, where, strange to say, the country opened out on to a "glacis-like" slope of stubble. Going was bad, up broken little roads over ground composed of a bewildering variety of slag-heaps 40 to 150 feet high, intersected with railway lines, mine heads, chimneys, industrial buildings, furnaces, and usines of all sorts, and thickening into suburbs consisting of narrow winding little streets and grubby little workmen's houses. Here and there were open spaces and even green fields, but nowhere could a continuous field of fire be obtained. The only thing was to select various points d'appui with some sort of command, and try and connect them up by patches of entrenchments; but even this was very difficult, as the line was so long and broken that no unity of command was possible, and the different patches were so separated and so uneven, some having to be in front of the general line and some in rear, that they often could not flank or even see each other.

At about midday several cyclists came riding back in a great hurry from the Canal, saying they had been attacked by a big force of cavalry and been badly cut up; that they had lost all their officers and 20 or 30 men killed, and the rest taken prisoners. This was hardly a good beginning, but it eventually turned out that the grand total losses were 1 officer (Corah of the Bedfords) slightly wounded, 2 men killed, and 3 missing.

Shortly after this the first German gun was heard—at 12.40 P.M. I timed it—and for the rest of the afternoon there was intermittent bombardment and numerous shell-bursts in the direction of the Canal, some of it our own Horse Artillery, but mostly German.

When we had roughly settled on our line, I shouted to a crowd of curious natives who had come out to watch us, and did not seem particularly friendly—as they were not at all sure that we were not Germans—to get all their friends together with pickaxes and shovels and start digging entrenchments where we showed them. It was Sunday afternoon, and all the miners were loafing about with nothing to do. The idea rapidly caught on, and soon they were hurrying off home for their tools, whilst we got hold of the best-dressed and most authoritative-looking men and showed them what we wanted done. It was scratch work, in more senses than one, as we had no time to lose and could not superintend, but had to tear from one point to another, raising men and showing them where the lines were to go, how deep the trenches were to be made, which way the earth was to be thrown, and all the rest of it.

On our way round we came also upon some batteries of field artillery, disconsolately wending their way through the narrow streets, and with their reconnoitring officers out in all directions looking for positions; but they found none, and the Artillery did but little in the way of shooting that night. With their present experience I expect they would have done a good deal more.

Then we tore back, and I got the battalions out, or rather two companies of each battalion, set them to work, and sent out their other two companies to support them. The Norfolks were on the left, at the station, and eastwards down the line. Then came the Cheshires, a bit thrown back, in beastly enclosed country for the most part. One of the big slag-heaps had seemed to offer a good command, but to our disgust it was so hot that we could hardly stand on it, so that had to be given up. Other heaps again seemed to give a good position, and they were fairly cool; but when we scrambled up there was always something wrong—either there were more slag-heaps in front which blocked the view, or the heap ran to a point and there was not room for more than two men, or the slag-ridge faced the wrong way—it was a nightmare of a place.

Beyond the Cheshires came the Dorsets and Bedfords, pretty well together, and occupying some trenches on a high railway embankment, &c., but the position was not really satisfactory, and if attacked in force at night it would be very difficult to see or guard against the approach of the enemy. Nor, as I heard afterwards, had the inhabitants dug the trenches anything like deep enough, so that they formed but poor protection against the rain of shells that began to pour on them at nightfall.

All pointed to an attack by the enemy during the night or next day, but even then we had not the smallest idea of the enormous forces arrayed against us. We were told at first that there was perhaps a corps in front of us, but as a matter of fact there were three, if not four