SCENE VII

ST. CRISPIN'S DAY

How, being with my colleagues at Rollancourt, I
witnessed the Battle of Agincourt

IN July, 1918,1 was quartered in the Chateau-
Rollancourt, on the little stream called the Ter-
noise, about twenty miles south of St, Omer,
and fifteen miles west of Montreuil, each in turn the
Headquarters of the British Army. Hesdin was our
nearest town, and St. Pol not much farther away to
the south-east. The Chateau was one of the typi-
cal " Courts" of that district, designed, I suppose,
for some nobleman of the early eighteenth century
but escaping the Revolution, as most of these aristo-
cratic mansions did escape. A green avenue led up
to the front, which was " imposing ", having a broad
classic centre and two wings of grey stone, an en-
trance portico, and windows opening upon the grass,
as is the French fashion. But the front, though im-
posing, was an imposition, for there was little behind
it. The mansion was one room thick, and had no
more inside than a knife-blade. The creaking stair-
case and such interior walls as existed were hung
with eighteenth-century engravings of aristocratic or
dramatic scenes, such as might illustrate Moliere,
and with bookshelves of elegant volumes, all dating

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