for some straw she claimed had been
stolen by the preceding troops, and while she and the interpreter
harangued over this we stowed our men away and sought our own billets a
little distance up the lane.

At Calonne we received newspapers telling of the starting of the French
offensive in the Artois district and prophesying an attack on our part
to co-operate with them. We got out our maps and saw we were quite close
to Neuve Chapelle, and as the Aubers Ridge--the great natural barrier to
Lille--formed the obvious point to attack, we were not greatly surprised
when a day or two after arriving at this peaceful little village we
again took the route--this time toward Neuve Chapelle. We had heard the
guns drumming along the Aubers Ridge all the day before during church
parade service (May 9th), and were, on the whole, rather disappointed
when after a few miles' march we turned off the road into a farm near
"le Cornet Malo" and lay there in the mud all day. Some of the Lahore
Division passed us on their way into the affair, the Indian gunners
sitting on their limbers like statues.

It was rather a wretched day we spent in this farm. A heavy rain had
turned the orchard in which we lay into a "bit of a bog," and all the
straw we could buy or steal from the inhabitants could not keep us out
of the mud. Here, too, we found the first instance of friction between
the troops and the civilian populace, and the old lady made no bones
about telling us how unwelcome we were. She opened hostilities by taking
the rod from the pump so that we could not fill our watercart, and the
troops retaliated by stealing bundles of unthreshed wheat. This was
speedily put a stop to (and paid for) by the officers, and, for a while,
peace reigned supreme while a thriving trade was done in coffee at two
sous a cup and beer at three sous a glass.

Then some of the officers, seeing a lot of freshly-baked bread in a room
just off the kitchen, offered to buy some. To our surprise the old woman
started to wave a knife around dangerously and screamed: "You take my
wheat, you take my water, and now you won't even leave me my bread! I
would rather the Germans had come; they at least pay for what they
take!"

As we had just paid her for the straw we thought this was going a little
too far, and F----, who had a fine taste for sarcasm, waved his
coffee-cup eloquently in the direction of the two slatternly girls that
were peddling the coffee to the soldiers thro