Ghost Cavalry of the Great War

Captain Wightwick was responsible for the intelligence in the sector of Bethune, a bright little French town that was practically untouched by the Great War.

The British soldiers had been fighting in the trenches for weeks without rest or relief. They had many heavy casualties, the men and their reserves were exhausted. Portugal came in the war on the side of the Allies and raised an army which landed in France in March 1918, while the enemy intensified his offensives with greater concentrations of men and guns over and over again. Towards the end of the month, Captain Wightwick was instructed that a Portuguese force would be passing through Bethune to relieve the British and take over a sector of the front. In May the United States decided to join the Allies and sent a first contingent of troops on its way across the Atlantic, but these reinforcements would not be available for the front near Bethune before the middle of June. Due to vigorous enemy action, the Allied lines there were left in a "pocket" and liable to be "hemmed in". All the troops, arms, ammunition and equipment in this sector would be lost then. It was improbable that the Portuguese troops would make much difference to the plans of the enemy...

The high explosive gun fire intensified and was so tremendous that the reverberating crash of concentrated shell shook the ground and dazed the British troops, who were by now three miles behind the front line. A dense hall of shrapnel and lead fell on the Portuguese, blotting them out, causing a gap in the Allied front through which the Germans began to pour. The few Portuguese who still were alive came staggering through Bethune. To get away from hell, they had thrown away their arms and equipment.

And then this strange thing happened:
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