ezebel grazing, as cool as a
cucumber!_

She still further insulted me by coming up and trying to push her nose
into my pocket, where I sometimes keep an apple for her.

[Sidenote: ANOTHER MOVE NORTHWARDS]

The guards, you see, had instantly gone in to get her away from the
horse she was kicking, when we first heard the commotion. The other
horses had mooned out of the entrance gap, and then, I suppose,
something--a fly, perhaps--had frightened them, and off they had
galloped. While "the accursed female," as we sometimes call Jezebel, too
sensible to stampede, quietly continued feeding. I shall never be taken
in by her air of innocence again. Never. I don't a bit mind saying I was
decidedly alarmed. That mare might have been responsible for the death
of the Corps Commander.

O Jezebel, I wish I could get angry with you and give you a jolly good
hiding one day. But you know I can't, you dear old thing. I'm writing
this in the orchard, where the H.Q. horses live, and Jezebel is standing
sleepily in the shade of her tree. She looks intensely stupid. She
occasionally tries to flick away a fly with her short tail. Occasionally
she sighs deeply, with that blubbery, spluttery noise that all horses
make when they sigh.

_August 15._

On the move. This is our first day's trek, and we are at a place where
we have been before--but not the same billets. I am in a cottage with
an earth floor (which looks very odd with a hideous drab-coloured
wall-paper), and small children and hens, both dirty, wander in and out
of my room. It's too hot to keep the door latched. A swallow's nest in
the room next door; and the people say that, although the young have
flown, they still return at night.

_August 19._

The Adjutant is away, and won't be returning for some time; so I am
still acting. And this, together with signal work, etc., is somewhat
arduous. I live all day in the "office," a very small bivouac in a green
field. There I sit praying for inspiration, when letters come in marked
_Urgent_, beginning something like this:

"LP/3657042--G1.

"Ref. your memo HC/516342/L12 of 13/8/16, please find A.F. 361B for
completion and immediate return."

And I haven't the least idea what I said in my memo HC/516342/L12 of
13/8/16, and I can't find any record of it. And I can't for the life of
me make out how I am meant to fill in A.F. 361B, because I haven't the
least idea what it's all about.

_August 26._

[Sid