the roof. The dead pigeon was at the back of the stove by the time he returned to interrogate her again.

When with tears in her eyes she broke the news about "le pauvre petit oiseau to Jean, the latter looked very grave. Their only hope of returning by air was now entirely removed. For himself he did not mind, as he still had many arrangements to make for the Commandant up in Belgium, and besides he had other means, but it would be a bitter blow for the boy. Werse still, there was a good ohance of the aeroplane and its pilot being captured, unless it could be warned, and this meant signalling to it from close to the new camp. "N'importe," that would have to be risked, and when Jean told Archer, the latter insisted that he would accompany him. They bitterly regretted having proposed an actual landing instead of leaving the arrangement as originally made by the Commandant at merely dropping pigeons from the air.

The route to the rendezvous was a long and circuitous one, and as they had to be there by 11.30 P.M., this meant starting the night before and lying up during the day. Carrying stout bludgeons, they emerged from the wood about midnight, where Adrienne at great personal risk and in spite of the moonlight came to wish them "bon voyage." As she pressed his hand, Archer raised it to his lips and endeavoured to thank her for all she had

done, but, blushing, she snatched it shyly away and was gone.

Jean, like Archer, had decided to go in uniform, "for this may be a fighting job," he said, "and if I have to hit a Boche it is well that he should know it comes from a French soldier. Also it may save reprisals against the inhabitants."

After a long tramp they lay up before dawn under the tarpaulin on the top of a haystack about a mile or more from the rendezvous, where they remained undisturbed throughout the day. As the sun went down the moon rose, but fortunately it was obsoured behind a heavy bank of clouds.

"Come on," said Jean, "we must get to those trenches before the moon gets high," and led the way behind hedges to a point where Archer could see a green field about 400 yards across and lying somewhat below them. A party of Germans were apparently still at work, and the two had to wait seme time before they saw figures leaving the trenches and going up the slope on the far side, where they disappeared into the wood. Jean, after watching for a few minutes, walked boldly out, saying, “Turn your cap round, they'll think we are part of the working party in this light," and made straight for the nearest trench, along which he proceeded to walk, Suddenly he stopped and sank down, and Archer heard voices round the next traverse and the olatter of entrenching tools. Probably the last men straight

ening things up before going back to camp, thought Archer at the time, though in the light of subsequent events he came to the conclusion that they were sentries left for the night over the tools. Whoever they were, they were very distinctly in the way.

Seemingly they also had heard something, as one called out in German. Receiving no reply he discussed the matter with a companion, and then Archer heard their footsteps advancing towards the traverse behind which the two were standing. Jean moved from the corner, sat down on the fire-step, and leaned back against the parapet in the shadow, motioning to Aroher to do the same.

One man, then another, came round the corner wearing steel helmets and carrying spades. They stared at Jean and Archer sitting motionless, and then advanced uncertainly, drawing their bayonets and saying, "Wer da." When they were well beyond the traverse Jean sprang at the leading man and the two went down together at the bottom of the trench. Archer to this day does not olearly recollect what happened, but he remembers jumping on to the fire-step to get past at the second German, and dashing his club in the latter's face just as he was making a out at the Frenchman in the bottom of the trench.

Two minutes later all was quiet, and the two, breathless and dusty but otherwise undamaged, were peering over the parapet in the direction of

the wood, where, however, no alarm seemed to have been raised amongst the Germans, who were having a concert of some kind.

They waited until nearly 11.30, and then they went cautiously along the trench till they were well in the middle of the field, and not more than 200 yards from the wood, where all was now quiet. Jean stopped where a high traverse concealed them from the wood, mounted the fire-step and drew out the electrio toreh with which he was to warn the aeroplane to keep away.

The ground mist was now lying in wisps, partially obscuring the features of the ground from the air, when they heard the distant drone of an aeroplane gradually getting louder. The moon was half veiled, but though it was quite light they could not see the machine. Then they heard the engine throttle down, and when Jean judged it was about within range he commenced to signal. To his dismay the torch made no response. It had been tested before they left the hay-rick, but evidently had been damaged in the recent struggle.

Nearer and nearer came the machine, and suddenly it appeared almost over their heads and only some 50 feet up. Jean drew his pistol and fired rapidly in the air, but well below it. The engine above opened out with a roar and the machine commenced to rise rapidly as Archer heard shouts from the wood, whether

as the result of the shots or from hearing the aeroplane he could not say. "Come on," said Jean, “let's get out of this quick before they discover the dead Boches and that it was not they who fired at the aeroplane." The two reached the hedge without mishap, and there we must leave them.

But before closing this chapter we will return for a moment to the little schoolhouse, and the day when the last pigeon reached the loft. As each preceding message had arrived it had become clearer that a big concentration was in progress in front of the British left, but the numbers of the units given presented a puzzling problem. Certainly there were two Divisions from the French front, but of the remainder some corresponded to no known formations, whilst other units given were part of Divisions still being reported as on the Russian front. The messages were no doubt genuine, but it looked very much as if Jean Bart had somehow got mixed up.

When the last message was opened by the Staff there was a shout in the little upper room. "By Jove! the Hun

has formed three new Divisions, and old von Biffen's army is over on our front-and the Russians haven't even missed him." For A.O.K. 16 stood for Armee Ober Kommando (Army Headquarters) of the 16th Army, which up till that moment was reported as pressing the Grand Duke beyond Warsaw, and where, in fact, only a skeleton remained in the front line to prevent its departure becoming known to the Allies.

And that is why the British Army closed to the left, whilst the French railways were orowded with troops moving from East to West, and why the Russians suddenly stopped their retreat and resumed the offensive with great success. Also why, six weeks later, the D.S.O. was pinned on Archer's breast, and Jean Bart is the proud possessor of both British and French decorations.

But that is another story, as also why Grandmère, released from a German prison after the armistice, looks proudly but sadly at the little case containing the Cross of the Legion of Honour and a curl of brown hair, which hangs on the wall beside the stove in the old kitchen.

1

I HAVE in my possession a memoir of the life of Colonel Edward Hamilton, who was, many years ago, in the service of the East India Company, and who in the later years of his life witnessed some of the events on the Continent which arose out of the French Revolution. This memoir was diotated by him to his wife, I believe at Clifton, when he was eighty-one years of age, and the last few pages of it, now almost illegible, were apparently added by his widow subsequent to his death. It is written in those ponderous and pompous periods which passed for elegant English with our ancestors, but much of it seems extremely interesting, especially that part which takes us back to the days of Clive.

Edward Hamilton was born in Geneva about the year 1733. His father was the second son of the Hon. George Hamilton, of Chilton, Kent, brother of the sixth Earl of Abercorn. Much kindness was shown to Edward through life by his cousin, James, seventh Earl of Abercorn, and by the latter's mother, the then DowagerCountess, both of whom seem

to have been most solicitous for his welfare and anxious to help him. His grandfather and his grandfather's brother, the sixth earl, were evidently gentlemen of expensive habits, and allusion is made at the outset of the memoir to their friendship with the Prince of Wales, the eldest son of George II., and the doubtful privilege which they enjoyed of "having the honour of the Heir Apparent's Company for many weeks together at their house in the country, of advancing money to His Royal Highness, and of receiving the most solemn and gracious assurances of everlasting gratitude."

Edward's father seems to have inherited his father's tastes, and, ruined in fortune, he went abroad, settled at Geneva, and married a daughter of the Baron de Vassarot of Amsterdam. This lady, one of several children, had inherited from her father some property in Savoy and £30,000, a fortune which her husband now appears to have spent as rapidly as circumstances permitted. One of her sisters became the mother of "the celebrated Hubert, the friend

of Voltaire," whilst a brother became the father of a Baron de Vassarot, who joined the service of the East India Company, served under Clive, and is mentioned, so the memoir states, in 'Cambridge's History of Hindoostan.'

Edward alludes to the extravagance of his parents, and remarks that their example led him "to think that a coach and six and all its appendages were necessaries of life, which were too often employed in conveying me from their country house to a school in Geneva." The Earl of Darnley, who happened to be staying with his father at the time of Edward's birth, was the latter's godfather, though he tells us that he never saw or heard from his godfather afterwards. We also read in the memoir that Hamilton's only and elder brother joined a Swiss regiment in the French service, and that "to the late Earl of Warwick my young heart was warmly attached. He had asked my eldest sister in marriage, but unfortunately her affections were engaged to M. de Salle, Syndic of Geneva, whose wife she afterwards became."

When, in the year 1742, the boy had attained the age of nine, the Earl of Abercorn came to stay with his father

at Geneva. He strongly urged that Edward should be sent to England to be educated under his supervision, and it was finally decided that this course should be adopted as soon as the boy was twelve years old. The father was too proud to accept the earl's proffered financial assistance; he insisted on bearing all the expense of his own son's education and outset in life.

On arrival in due course in England, Edward found that the Earl and Dowager-Countess were at Bath, whither he followed them, and where they received him with the utmost kindness, introducing him, a8 he tells us, "to the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, the present Lord Minto, father and family, and the celebrated Mr Nash." 1

On his return with the earl to London, Edward was placed at a school at Enfield, where he "had the happiness of forming the strictest friendship with Lord Strathnaver, afterwards Earl of Sutherland, who possessed every virtue and excellence of which human nature could be capable at that interesting age." Another schoolfellow appears to have been "an amiable Scotch youth, the late William Hope Vere, who had lost his hearing by some early misfortune."

Lord Strathnaver and Mr

one.