ms into seal-like flappers. In fact, time would
convert them into intelligent sea-lions, and render them completely in
harmony with their natural life.

Our tonic began by being taken, one dose after meals, twice daily. In
the morning the battalion generally went for a long route march, and in
the afternoon practised military training of various kinds in the fields
about the village. My whole time was occupied with machine-gun training.
Morning and afternoon I and my sections went off out into the country,
and selecting a good variegated bit of land proceeded to go through
every phase of machine-gun warfare. We practised the use of these
weapons in woods, open fields, along hedges, etc. It was an interesting
job. We used to decide on some section of ground with an object to be
attacked in the distance, and approach it in all kinds of ways.
Competitions would follow between the different sections. The days were
all bright, warm and sunny, so life and work out in the fields and roads
there was quite pleasant. Each evening we assembled in our cheerful
billet, and thus our rest went on. My sketching now broke out like a
rash. I drew a great many sketches. I joked in pencil for every one,
including Suzette, Berthe and Marthe. I am sorry to say I plead guilty
to having cast a certain amount of ridicule at the Cure. He was so
splendidly austere, and wore such funny clothes, that I couldn't help
perpetrating several sketches of him. The disloyalty of his
parishioners was very marked in the way they laughed at these drawings,
which were pinned up in the row of cottages. Sometimes I would let him
off for a day, and then he would come drifting past the window again,
with his "Dante" face, surmounted by a large curly, faded black hat, and
I gave way to temptation again.

He didn't like soldiers being billeted in his village, so Suzette told
me. I think he got this outlook from his rather painful experiences when
the Germans were in the same village, prior to being driven north. They
had locked him up in his own cellar for four or five days, after
removing his best wine, which they drank upstairs. This sort of thing
_does_ tend towards giving one a bitter outlook. He preached a sermon
whilst we were there. I didn't hear it, but was told about it
simultaneously by Suzette, Berthe and Marthe, who informed me that it
was directed against soldiery in general. His text had apparently been
"Do not trust them, gentle ladies." A gross libe