to the town, while the rest of us waited impatiently for
them to come back, taking a despatch or two in the meanwhile.

From the despatch rider's point of view Abbeville is a large and
admiring town, with good restaurants and better baths. These baths were
finer than the baths of Havre--full of sweet-scented odours and the
deliciously intoxicating fumes of good soap and plenteous boiling-water.

In a little restaurant we met some friends of the 3rd Division and a
couple of London Scots, who were getting heartily sick of the L. of C.,
though taking prisoners round the outskirts of Paris had, I gather, its
charm even for the most ardent warriors.

In the morning there was parade, a little football, and then a stroll
into the town. I had just finished showing an Intelligence Officer how
to get a belt back on to the pulley of his motor-cycle when Cecil met me
and told me we were to move north that evening.

We had a delectable little tea, bought a map or two, and then strolled
back to the barracks. In half an hour we were ready to move off, kit
piled high upon our carriers, looking for all the world (said our C.O.)
like those funny little animals that carry their houses upon their backs
and live at the bottom of ponds. Indeed it was our boast that--such was
our ingenuity--we were able to carry more kit than any regimental
officer.

It was dusk when N'Soon and I pushed off,--we had remained behind to
deal with messages that might come in foolishly after the Division had
left. We took the great highroad to Calais, and, carefully passing the
General, who was clattering along with his staff and an escort of
Hussars, we pulled up to light our lamps at a little estaminet with
glowing red blinds just like the blinds of certain hospitable taverns in
the city of Oxford. The coincidence was so remarkable that we were
compelled to enter.

We found a roaring, leaping log-fire, a courteous old Frenchman who
drank our healths, an immense omelette, some particularly good coffee,
and the other despatch riders.

That night it was freezing hard. With our chairs drawn in close to the
fire, a glass of something to keep the cold out ready to hand, and pipes
going strong, we felt sorry for the general and his escort who, probably
with chilled lips and numbed fingers, jogged resoundingly through the
village street.

Twenty minutes later we took the road, and soon, pretending that we had
lost our way, again passed the general--and lost ou