te it more
carefully. The way they go strewing the stuff about round us is such
that they're bound to hit someone or something before long. Still we
have only two more days in, and they seldom give us more than ten
thousand shells a day.

We are in billets now, and frankly, I am beginning to be very exercised
about my boots. When I say "my boots" I mean rather the boots concerning
me than "the boots that are mine." I wanted, some couple of months ago,
a new pair of boots. I told the Quartermaster, and he looked at my then
boots superciliously and said he could quite believe it.

I rashly left it at that, imagining something would happen. A man like a
quartermaster, who rolls in boots, would, I felt, think nothing of
sending along a dozen pairs before breakfast, with a chit telling me to
give away what I couldn't use. But no. It seems every boot in his store
was numbered.

I approached him again, and demanded boots, soberly, seriously and
strenuously, I even offered to pay for them. This appeared to cheer him
a little, and he murmured something about Army Form 247 x2b, not at
present in stock, but indispensable to the issue of the most negligible
boot on payment. My further efforts were, owing to exigencies of my
military situation, conducted through emissaries. My servant would
demand of his company agent nightly, what about them boots? And the
company agent would reply--also nightly--that, if the officer would send
his size down, the matter would be put through at once. For five nights
running my size in boots went down with the empty water tins. On the
last night I added a sketch of my feet and of my present boots, with
scale of kilometres subjoined, a brief history of footgear in Flanders
from pre-Caesarian times to the present day, one piece of broken lace
from the old boots, and anything else that struck me as likely to put
the matter a little further through.

The lace appeared to put quite a new idea into their heads. The advance
booting agent now seemed to think that if I had some boots already I
might get the new pair by a process known as exchange, which takes less
time and has the additional advantage of not costing anything. This
struck them as an excellent new game for several days while they were
deciding which was the right army form for an officer desirous of
exchanging boots. At last all appeared fixed up. I came back into
billets with every confidence of finding a couple of boots waiting for
me on