“Then the first of them appeared, four men, bowing into the wind, shuffling. They did not see me until they were almost upon me and when they looked up they looked up like children. Was I there to save them or to kill them? Others came. Men with beards, boys who could not have grown a beard had their lives depended on it. Some of them called up their names, their regiments. No two seemed to be from the same outfit. I am not even sure they were all British, that I didn’t have some of General Romano’s men. You couldn’t tell from the uniforms because there weren’t any, or rather there was a complete muddle of uniforms, anything at all as long as it gave some protection against the cold. One man had on the brass helmet of a French dragoon. God knows where he found it. I thought of telling him to take it off but I didn’t. I couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t care.

“In all I collected close to thirty. Some still had weapons. Most could have done nothing but throw snowballs at the French. It had been common practice for some time to use musket stocks for firewood. Well, I formed them into a column and we set off in search of the army. It was not that far ahead of us, couldn’t be, and the sooner I caught up with it the sooner I could be rid of my charges. It was necessary however to keep stopping. Had I not done so I would soon have had to commence the whole business over again. So we stopped every hour then every half-hour, all the while widening the gap between us and the army. The snow came horizontally. I remember leaning on my horse’s neck trying to see the road. I had no sense of progress, no notion of our coming closer to anything other than our own extinction. For three days we went on like this. Three days does not sound like a long time but to us it began to seem we had never known any other and never would. Some gave up, walked into the forest or lay in the snow to sleep. Others joined us, fell in with the column. I followed the road and they followed me, their officer. Not out of any respect or fear. There was nothing of either. Very likely they followed because I was on a horse and had I toppled off the horse, as I often thought I might, they would have taken my boots, my cloak, left me where I was, dead or dying. I would not have blamed them. I would have understood . . . ”