Through the streets of Béthune streamed a tide of war: the transport of divisions, gun-teams with their limber ambulance convoys, ammunition wagons, infantry moving up to the front, despatch riders, staff-officers, signalers, and a great host of men and mules and motorcars. The rain lashed down upon the crowds; waterproofs and burberries and the tarpaulin covers of forage-carts streamed with water, and the bronzed faces of the soldiers were dripping wet. Mud splashed them to the thighs. Fountains of mud spurted up from the wheels of gun-carriages. The chill of winter made Highlanders as well as Indians⁠—those poor, brave, wretched Indians who had been flung into the holding attack on the canal at La Bassée, and mown down in the inevitable way by shrapnel and machine-gun bullets⁠—shiver in the wind.