.

If you turn up the word "locomotion" in a dictionary, you will find it
means "the act or power of moving from place to place"; from _locus_, a
place, and _motion_, the act of moving. Our engine had got the _locus_
part all right, but was rather weak about the _motion_. We creaked and
squeaked about up the moss-grown track, and groaned our way back into
the station time after time, in order to tie on something else behind
the train, or to get on to a siding to let a trainload of trench
floorboards and plum and apple jangle past up the line. When at last we
really started, it was about at the speed of the "Rocket" on its trial
trip.

Our enthusiastic "going on leave" ardour was severely tested, and nearly
broke down before we reached Boulogne, which we did late that night. But
getting there, and mingling with the leave-going crowd which thronged
the buffet, made up for all travelling shortcomings. Every variety of
officer and army official was represented there. There were colonels,
majors, captains, lieutenants, quantities of private soldiers, sergeants
and corporals, hospital nurses and various other people employed in some
war capacity or other. Representatives from every branch of the Army, in
fact, whose turn for leave had come.

I left the buffet for a moment to go across to the Transport Office, and
walking along through the throng ran into my greatest friend. A most
extraordinary chance this! I had not the least idea whereabouts in
France he was, or when he might be likely to get leave. His job was in
quite a different part, many miles from the Douve. I have known him for
many years; we were at school together, and have always seemed to have
the lucky knack of bobbing up to the surface simultaneously without
prior arrangement. This meeting sent my spirits up higher than ever. We
both adjourned to the buffet, and talked away about our various
experiences to the accompaniment of cold chicken and ham. A merry scene
truly, that buffet--every one filled with thoughts of England. Nearly
every one there must have stepped out of the same sort of mud and danger
bath that I had. And, my word! it is a first-class feeling: sitting
about waiting for the boat when you feel you've earned this seven days'
leave. You hear men on all sides getting the last ounce of appreciation
out of the unique sensation by saying such things as, "Fancy those poor
blighters, sitting in the mud up there; they'll be just about getting
near 'St