people are
charming. There is nothing you cannot buy there. It is clean and
well-ordered, and cheerful in the rain. I pray that Bethune may survive
the war--that after peace has been declared and Berlin has been entered,
I may spend a week there and much money to the profit of the people and
the satisfaction of myself.

Now I will give some account of our adventures out with the brigades
round La Bassee.

[Illustration: ROUND LA BASSEE]

FOOTNOTES:

[15] The first--in October and November.

[16] This is not an unthinking advertisement. After despatch riding from
August 16 to February 18 my judgment should be worth something. I am
firmly convinced that if the Government could have provided all despatch
riders with Blackburnes, the percentage--at all times small--of messages
undelivered owing to mechanical breakdowns or the badness of the roads
would have been reduced to zero. I have no interest in the Blackburne
Company beyond a sincere admiration of the machine it produces.

CHAPTER IX.

ROUND LA BASSEE.

It had been a melancholy day, full of rain and doubting news. Those of
us who were not "out" were strolling up and down the platform arranging
the order of cakes from home and trying to gather from the sound of the
gunning and intermittent visits to the Signal Office what was happening.

Someone had been told that the old 15th was being hard pressed. Each of
us regretted loudly that we had not been attached to it, though our
hearts spoke differently. Despatch riders have muddled thoughts. There
is a longing for the excitement of danger and a very earnest desire to
keep away from it.

The C.O. walked on to the platform hurriedly, and in a minute or two I
was off. It was lucky that the road was covered with unholy grease, that
the light was bad and there was transport on the road--for it is not
good for a despatch rider to think too much of what is before him. My
instructions were to report to the general and make myself useful. I was
also cheerfully informed that the H.Q. of the 15th were under a robust
shell-fire. Little parties of sad-looking wounded that I passed, the
noise of the guns, and the evil dusk heartened me.

I rode into Festubert, which was full of noise, and, very hastily
dismounting, put my motor-cycle under the cover of an arch and reported
to the general. He was sitting at a table in the stuffy room of a
particularly dirty tavern. At the far end a fat and frightened woman was
cr