w pronunciation.

However, we detrained onto the line. The night was as black as pitch.
Sleepy soldiers, struggling with their equipments, dropped out of the
carriages; and after a great deal of shouting we got into some kind of
formation, and the long column slowly moved off into the night.

I dropped into position in the rear of the column, feeling very tired,
and wondering where I should find a place to sleep. The long column
wended its way through narrow streets and along cobbled roads, and
gradually seemed to melt into mysterious doorways under the guiding
influence of quartermaster sergeants.

This process went on until I suddenly realised that the whole column
had disappeared, and I was left alone in the streets of Corbie at 3
A.M. in a steady downpour of rain, without the faintest notion of
where I was, or where my billet was. I walked a little farther down
the street, and being very tired, wet, and sleepy, had almost decided
to lie in the street until the morning, when I tumbled across Farman,
Chislehirst, and Day following the faithful quartermaster-sergeant to
an unknown billet.

The billet consisted of a bathroom in one of the outbuildings of a
large estate. The door of the bathroom had been locked, and the water
had been turned off. However, we scrambled through the window. The
floor was hard, but we had a roof above our heads, and we were all
soon snoring on the floor, fast asleep.

Next morning I took a walk around the estate and found myself in a
lovely orchard. It was deserted. An abundance of most delicious fruit
met my gaze wherever I went. I wandered up and down, picking the
apples and the pears, biting the fruit and throwing it away. I felt
like a bad boy in an orchard; but the orchard was deserted and the
fruit was going to waste; so if I was looting, I consoled myself with
the thought that I was preventing waste.

It was about 1.30 in the afternoon, and I had just settled myself down
in a comfortable seat under an apple-tree, and had pulled a Sunday
newspaper out of my pocket; it was a hot September day, and I was
feeling lazy.

I was bound for the Somme. There was a mysterious air about the place
that seemed unnatural. These beautiful gardens were deserted, but the
sound of the guns could be heard in the distance.

I had settled myself comfortably, trying to imagine with the aid of
the Sunday paper and a cigar that I was really sitting in my own
gardens, when I noticed a man filling his