The military historian must often make shift to write of battles with slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels. If his were the talented pen describing this, the latest action fought on British soil against a foreign foe¹, he would no doubt be crippled by the absence of written orders and war diaries. But how eloquently² he would discant on the resemblance between Dougal and Gouraud—how the plan of leaving the enemy to waste his strength upon a deserted³ position was that which on the 15th of July, 1918, the French general had used with decisive effect in Champagne⁴! But Dougal had never heard of Gouraud, and I cannot claim that, like the Happy Warrior⁵, he

 

"through the heat of conflict kept the law

In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."

I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with him and his colleagues, but I should offend against historic truth if I represented the main action as anything but a scrimmage—a "soldiers' battle," the historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.

 

Just after half-past three that afternoon the Commander-in-Chief was revealed in a very bad[Pg 258] temper. He had intercepted⁶ Sir Archie's car, and, since Léon was known to be fully⁷ occupied, had brought it in by the West Lodge⁸, and hidden it behind a clump⁹ of laurels¹⁰. There he had held a hoarse

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