Page:Angels of Mons second edition.pdf/47

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INTRODUCTION

up into squadrons—fine, big men, on massive chargers.

"I remember turning to my chums in the ranks and saying, 'Thank God! We are not far off Paris now. Look at the French cavalry!'

"They, too, saw them quite plainly, but on getting closer, to our surprise the horsemen vanished and gave place to banks of white mist, with clumps of trees and bushed dimly showing through them!

"Quite a simple illusion, yet at the time we actually picked out the lines of man and horse as plainly as possible, and almost imagined we heard the champing of the horses' bits!

"When I tell you that hardened soldiers who had been through many a campaign were marching quite mechanically along the road and babbling all sorts of nonsense in sheer delirium, you can well believe we were in a fit state to

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