lves, we might regard it as a
promising face spoilt for a tradition, still discipline was discipline.
And so the bristles came, and remained until the happy day when the War
Office, at the risk of losing the war, made them optional. Immediately
they were uprooted.

Now the Colonel has only one fault (I have been definitely promised my
second star in 1927, so he won't think I am flattering him with a
purpose): he likes moustaches. His own is admirable, and I have no wish
for him to remove it, but I think he should be equally broad-minded about
mine.

"You aren't really more beautiful without it," he said. "A moustache
suits you."

"My wife doesn't think so," I said firmly. I had the War Office on my
side, so I could afford to be firm.

The Colonel looked at me, and then he looked out of the window, and made
the following remarkable statement.

"Toby," he said gently to himself, "doesn't like clean-shaven officers."

This hadn't occurred to me; I let it sink in.

"Of course," I said at last, "one must consider one's horse. I quite see
that."

"With a bicycle," he said, "it's different."

And so there you have the second reason. If the Bombing Officer rode
Toby, I should shave again to-morrow, and then where would the Battalion
be? Ruined.

So Toby and I go off together. Up till now he has been good to me. He has
bitten one Company Commander, removed another, and led the Colonel a
three-mile chase across country after him, so if any misunderstanding
occurs between us there will be good precedent for it. So far my only
real trouble has been once when billeting.

Billeting is delightful fun. You start three hours in advance of the
battalion, which means that if the battalion leaves at eight in the
morning, you are up in the fresh of the day, when the birds are singing.
You arrive at the village and get from the Mayor or the Town Major a list
of possible hostesses. Entering the first house (labeled "Officers 5")
you say, "_Vous avez un lit pour un Officier ici, n'est-ce pas? Vive la
France_!" She answers, "_Pas un lit_," and you go to the next house.
"_Vous avez place pour cent hommes--oui?" "Non_," says she--and so on.
By-and-by the battalion arrives, and everybody surrounds you. "Where are
_my_ men going?" "Where is _my_ billet?" "Where's 'C' Company's mess?"
"Have you found anything for the Pioneers?" And so one knows what it is
to be popular.

Well, the other day the Major thought he'd come with me, just t