How the Big River Was Swum
Our next step was to see how crossing the river was carried out by the cavalry. From information received we presented ourselves at a certain spot on the river at a little before ten one morning. The official attachés had received notice that a brigade of cavalry would swim the river at this point at ten o’clock, and at ten o’clock their special train was due to arrive there.
We were there, fortunately, half an hour beforehand, and we saw the whole brigade come down to the river and file across a fairly deep ford, where the horses got wet to some extent, but they did not swim.
On the far bank a few men were left behind. These, as it turned out, were all the men and horses who could actually swim well, and as the train arrived and the attachés disembarked on to the bank they found the major part of the brigade already arrived, dripping wet, and the remainder just swimming over at that moment.
Of course in their reports they stated that they had seen the whole brigade swimming over. But this is how reports very often get about which are not strictly true.