Note (Back to main text) — ILLUSTRATION.

Here it was that Saint André joined us, having been cast off by the 5th Divisional Staff at Landrecies as a superfluous interpreter. Looking like an ordinary French subaltern with a pince-nez, he was in fact a Protestant pastor from Tours, son of the Vicomte de Saint André, very intelligent and "cultured," with a great sense of humour and extremely keen. I really cannot speak too highly of him, for he was a most useful addition to the Staff. In billeting and requisitioning, and in all matters requiring tact in connection with the inhabitants or the French Army, he was invaluable. I used him later as A.D.C. in action, and as Officier de liaison with the French troops. I don't know what his knowledge of divinity may have been, but if it was anything like equal to his military knowledge it must have been considerable. He had studied theology at Edinburgh, and his English was very fluent, luckily untouched by a Scottish accent. He was always bubbling over with vitality and go, and plunged into English with the recklessness of his race; when he couldn't express himself clearly he invented words which were the joy of the Mess,—"pilliate," "whizzle," "contemporative," and dozens of others that I can't remember; and what used to charm us particularly was that he so often went out of his way to put the accent on the wrong syllable, such as in bilyétting, brígade, áttack, ambassádor, &c. He was, indeed, a great acquisition to the Brigade.[6]