Moreover, lorries when they
skid, skid furiously._

Four miles short of Hazebrouck we caught up the rest. Proceeding in
single file along the road, we endeavoured not to laugh, for--as one
despatch rider said--it makes all the difference on grease which side of
your mouth you put your pipe in. We reached Hazebrouck at midday.
Spreading out--the manoeuvre had become a fine art--we searched the
town. The "Chapeau Rouge" was well reported on, and there we lunched.

All those tourists who will deluge Flanders after the war should go to
the "Chapeau Rouge" in Hazebrouck. There we had lentil soup and stewed
kidneys, and roast veal with potatoes and leeks, fruit, cheese, and good
red wine. So little was the charge that one of us offered to pay it all.
There are other more fashionable hotels in Hazebrouck, but, trust the
word of a despatch rider, the "Chapeau Rouge" beats them all.

Very content we rode on to Caestre, arriving there ten minutes before
the advance-party of the Signal Company. Divisional Headquarters were
established at the House of the Spy. The owner of the house had been
well treated by the Germans when they had passed through a month before.
Upon his door had been written this damning legend--

HIER SIND GUETIGE LEUTE[22]

and, when on the departure of the Germans the house had been searched by
an indignant populace, German newspapers had been discovered in his
bedroom.

It is the custom of the Germans to spare certain houses in every village
by chalking up some laudatory notice. We despatch riders had a theory
that the inhabitants of these marked houses, far from being spies, were
those against whom the Germans had some particular grievance. Imagine
the wretched family doing everything in its power to avoid the effusive
affection of the Teuton, breaking all its own crockery, and stealing all
its own silver, defiling its beds and tearing its clothing. For the man
whose goods have been spared by the German becomes an outcast. He lives
in a state worse than death. He is hounded from his property, and driven
across France with a character attached to him, like a kettle to a
cat's tail. Genuine spies, on the other hand--so we thought--were worse
treated than any and secretly recompensed. Such a man became a hero. All
his neighbours brought their little offerings.

The House of the Spy had a fine garden, hot and buzzing in the
languorous heat. We bathed ourselves in it. And the sanitary
arrangemen