When the coffin appeared the Highlanders who formed the guard of honour executed a strange movement. They slowly described an arc of a circle with their rifles, their outstretched right arms forming an uninterrupted line all round the square, then each man finished the movement by crossing his arms on the butt-plate of his rifle, the muzzle of which was now resting on the ground.
With their heads bowed, these mourners resembled some old bas-relief. The coffin, enveloped in the Union Jack, was borne on a gun-carriage. It was all very simple and very moving.
To the wild notes of the Scottish bagpipes, now silent, the clear trumpets of our dragoons replied, and their sound was in itself like sparkling metal. They continued to sound until the remains of the Field-Marshal had been placed in the town hall.
After the ceremony, which we did not see, twenty-one guns thundered out, fired by batteries posted behind the square. An immense rainbow, as sharply defined as if drawn with a stroke of the brush, cut the sky with a perfect and uninterrupted semicircle. Symbol of peace, it came to earth directly behind the batteries, and the flash of the guns showed up against its iridescent screen.
An English officer came to tell the Colonel that the ceremony was over, and we returned to Clarques under a beating rain, which had begun to fall again.
Our next active work was at Nieuport. Motor buses brought us to Coxyde, where, amongst the slightly built villas of this watering-place, Belgian and French uniforms swarmed. Sand-dunes, on which the sand encroached on the scanty covering of grass, bordered the horizon on all sides.
Captain Vigoureux had sent me to lay out the camp with a corporal and one man. Clère, Hénon and I went on ahead at a sharp pace. From Coxyde to Ostdinkerque there was no trace of bombardment. On the road we met several lots of horses at exercise, some waggons, many soldiers and a few civilians. At Ostdinkerque a mill, two houses and a part of the church had been gutted yesterday. Some vehicles contained civilians, who were prudently clearing out.
From this place onwards (Nieuport-Ville was six kilomètres off) the road became more and more deserted and the noise of the guns became louder. At first we only heard the noise of our own batteries and the shell burst a long way off. Two kilomètres from Nieuport I heard the whistle of the first German shell, a shrapnel which burst some hundreds of mètres off. Several people on the road were peppered with the fragments of shell; the telegraph wires were broken and the rails of a tramway were torn up. The country was a desert, and the eye saw nothing but sand-dunes without end, and here our underground life began.