Aisne. Some hard marching, a train journey, more hard marching, and it
was thrown into action at La Bassée. There it fought itself to a
standstill. It was attacked and attacked until, shattered, it was
driven back one wild night. It was rallied, and turning on the enemy
held them. More hard marching--a couple of days' rest, and it staggered
into action at Ypres, and somehow--no one knows how--it held its bit of
line. A brigade called by the same name, consisting of the same
regiments, commanded by the same general, but containing scarce a man of
those who had come out in August, marched very proudly away from Ypres
and went--not to rest--but to hold another bit of the line.

And this brigade was not the Guards Brigade. There were no picked men in
the brigade. It contained just four ordinary regiments of the line--the
Norfolks, the Bedfords, the Cheshires, and the Dorsets. What the 15th
Brigade did, other brigades have done.

Now little has been heard of this fighting round La Bassée in October,
so I wish I could tell you about it in more detail than I can. To my
thinking it was the finest fighting I have seen.

You will understand, then, how difficult it is for me to describe the
country round La Bassée. I might describe it as it appeared to me when
first we arrived--sunny and joyous, with many little farms and thick
hedges and rare factories--or as I saw it last, on a horrible yellowish
evening, shattered and black and flooded and full of ghosts.

Now when first we arrived news filtered through to us that La Bassée was
held only by a division of Jägers, plentifully supplied with artillery
and machine guns. I believe this was the fact. The Jägers held on
stubbornly until reinforcements came up. Instead of attacking we were