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Western Mail, Thursday 11 May 1933, page 2
THE HORSE, THE FRIEND OF MAN.
In early ''15, before the canteens were going, we hadn't tasted whisky for months. From Behencourt (about 15 miles from Amiens) another chap and myself were despatched to get some. We borrowed a sulky from Madame at the farm, and put in the shafts a mare (Old Netty) which had belonged to a farmer in Angus, Scotland. She took us a spanking gait to "Ameens." Each store would only give us two bottles at the most, so we kept on shopping until we had two dozen aboard (the sulky). Finishing our commissions, we put the mare in a stable near the river, and after a hectic day we landed up at Hotel du Rhin for dinner at 7.
A good dinner, a magnum of Veuve Cliquot, 1906, and we were having coffee and liqueurs in the court-yard garden at the back when Sir John French was announced. On his way to the dining-room he passed our table with several of his 6taff. We both made (or thought we did) a fairly creditable show at "Attention," but, whether out of sympathy or not, he quickly said: "Sit down, please, gentlemen: thank you."
When it was time to make a break, about, midnight, we arrived at the stable for our turnout. Old Monsieur was very affable, and insisted on bringing us in to have a bowl of punch. The mainstay of this, I am sure, was S.R.D. Anyhow, it proved an effective nightcap for both of us, and within a hundred yards of our starting point for the homeward journey we were sound asleep in the sulky in the heart of Amiens.
Old Netty had never been on the road before that day, but .she took us fifteen miles home, at her own pace. The first thing we remembered of the trip was her song to her cobbers in the horse lines, with-her head over the paddock gate.
R. R. Alexander, ex-Highland Division, Cunderdin.