_First._ If you are going to put troops on the farther side of the river
you must have the means of crossing it, and you must keep those means
intact. The bridges running from left to right of our line were at
Venizel, Missy, Sermoise, and Condé. The first three were blown up.
Venizel bridge was repaired sufficiently to allow of light traffic to
cross, and fifty yards farther down a pontoon-bridge was built fit for
heavy traffic. Missy was too hot: we managed an occasional ferry. I do
not think we ever had a bridge at Sermoise. Once when in search of the
C.R.E. I watched a company of the K.O.S.B. being ferried across under
heavy rifle fire. The raft was made of ground-sheets stuffed, I think,
with straw. Condé bridge the Germans always held, or rather neither of
us held it, but the Germans were very close to it and allowed nobody to
cross. Just on our side of the bridge was a car containing two dead
officers. No one could reach them. There they sat until we left, ghastly
sentinels, and for all I know they sit there still.

Now all communication with troops on the north bank of the river had to
pass over these bridges, of which Venizel alone was comparatively safe.
If ever these bridges should be destroyed, the troops on the north bank
would be irrevocably cut off from supplies of every sort and from
orders. I often used to wonder what would have happened if the Germans
had registered accurately upon the bridges, or if the river had risen
and swept the bridges away.

_Second._ There was an open belt between the river and the villages
which we occupied--Bucy-le-Long, St Marguerite, Missy. The road that
wound through this belt was without the veriest trace of cover--so much
so, that for a considerable time all communication across it was carried
on by despatch riders, for a cable could never be laid. So if our