THE horse chestnut tree in the Belfry Gardens high above the town of Mons has begun to swell with those fruits of late summer so familiar and beloved of small boys.

It occurs to me that this old tree must have seen many sights, perched here on top of the highest ground in the town with a view that stretches for miles. Truly a silent sentinel, witness down the centuries.

We collapse on to the bench to rest our aching limbs, take a long drink from a can of beer and then eagerly tuck into some black bread and cheese. It has been a long morning and the walk up the hill with rucksacks in the August heat has taken its toll.

We should be so lucky. Rest, food and drink. Comforts such as these, that we take for granted, were available in extremely short supply for the soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force when they poured through the streets below us on August 23, 1914, with the German Army in hot pursuit.

We finish our meal and I try to take some photographs of the Belgian countryside where the first battle between the British and Germans was fought in 1914. This is the recommended vantage point according to the tourist office.

But today our view is obscured by builders' scaffolding and panels. The belfry tower, a towering Gothic edifice, is being renovated.

Yet we can see enough. To our left lies the Canal du Centre and the railway and road bridges so valiantly defended by the Royal Fusiliers and the Middlesex Regiment.

The spoil heaps that once proved such a problem for ranging the artillery are now overgrown with trees and scrub.

In front of us, the fields ripple with ripe wheat and barley. On the immediate horizon, the woods yield to the most gentle of breezes and the sun, peeping between the clouds, sends long shafts of sunshine, stilts of light stabbing the earth.

I search for a small leather case in my rucksack containing a Kruger shilling, dating from the Boer War. It once belonged to my great-uncle Ernest, a company sergeant-major with the British Expeditionary Force here at Mons almost exactly 86 years ago to this day.

This grimy little coin, a soldier's talisman, has already retraced it owner's steps from the Channel to the Ypres Salient. Now it has returned to Mons, where in August, 1914 the British Army fired its first shots on mainland Europe since the Battle Of Waterloo.

The Germans attacked all along this front on that hot, cloudless morning of August 23. In a day of valour and sacrifice, the soldiers of the BEF - the Old Contemptibles - put a brake on the German advance through Belgium, even though they had to fall back in the face of overwhelming numbers.

Gazing at the terrain I'm suddenly reminded of the legend. A story that I heard years ago, can't remember where or when... the legend of the Angels Of Mons.

The story goes like this. On the evening of the 23rd, the position of the 8th Brigade had become extremely serious. The Germans had outflanked Mons to the east, occupying the town and threatening the British lines of retreat. They were in great danger of encirclement.

According to the legend, it was at this moment, towards midnight, that angels descended from heaven dressed as archers and stopped the Germans in their tracks. The British, under their protection, were able to withdraw in the darkness, thereby escaping annihilation.

This tale seems to have originated with a short story by an occult writer called Arthur Machen, entitled The Bowmen. It was printed on September 29, 1914, in the London Evening News and was the first mention of the Angels Of Mons legend.

The account begins with the retreat of the BEF. One of the soldiers remembers St George and cries out a motto he'd once seen in a depiction of him, Adlis Anglis Sanctus Georgius - St George help the English.

Thousands followed suit and called out to St George. Miraculously, a long line of ghostly English archers appears to cut down thousands of German troops. The archers saved the day.

Within a few days, Machen was contacted and asked if the story had any foundation. Machen said no, it was a work of fiction. Over the following months, he gave permission for many reprints. Again he was asked for exact sources, this time by a vicar who wished to reprint The Bowmen as a pamphlet.

Machen again insisted it was purely an invention of his imagination. The vicar flatly refused to believe him, and the creation surpassed its creator. Soon, a well-meaning and patriotic nurse, Phyliss Campbell, came on to the scene. She claimed to have direct testimony from various sources to verify her statements.

Then relatives of soldiers came forward, claiming that their men had actually found the bodies of Germans, dead from arrow wounds!

Over the years, the truth has been smothered by an appealing fantasy. The story was a wonderful morale booster in England, as it appears to have actually helped the war effort at a time when the British were suffering from a number of reverses.

Arthur Machen was a writer of fantastic and supernatural fiction. A leading practitioner in the decadence of 1890s London, his tales of supernatural horror explored darkly pagan themes.

His writing powerfully evoked the wildness of his native Wales, and, in his essays and journalism, he was a ceaseless propagandist against economic and scientific materialism.

By Christmas 1915, widespread rumours had taken away the credit for the successful retreat away from the resilient and long-suffering British soldiers whose ordeal at Mons was compounded by the agonies of a 180-mile march almost to the outskirts of Paris.

This in itself was nothing short of a miracle. Desperately short of food and water, ragged, unshaven and under constant threat of attack from their pursuers, it is a tribute to these men that they were able to summon the strength to turn the tables and push the enemy back over the rivers Marne and Aisne. We finish our lunch and descend the hill into the Grand Place. Once again, we walk down the Rue de Nimy where the British fell back, firing from doorways and from behind lamp posts all those years ago on that broiling day in August, 1914.

The cobbles slip beneath our feet, just as they must have done as the infantry clattered up here towards the town square with the Germans in hot pursuit.

Out of the Grand Place we walk past the imposing structure of the Saint Waudru Collegiate Church, where a plaque commemorates the sacrifice of the soldiers of the British Empire.

Then it's down the hill, past the statue of King Leopold and on to the railway station where we are due to catch the train back to Brussels.

Soon we are sweeping out of Mons, over the Canal du Centre and bound for Soignies. I open that compartment in my rucksack and cannot resist fumbling for the shilling once more. The August sunlight, bursting through the carriage windows, soon illuminates the little coin sat in the palm of my hand.

I cannot help thinking that it is the very same sun that shone in August, 1914, as the good people of Mons made their way to church on that fateful Sunday, praying that the English soldiers would deliver them from the invader. Same sun, same coin, both transcending the passage of the years.

And just for a moment - only a moment- time itself seemed to stand still.