ry I stopped at an inn for a beefsteak. The
landlord's daughter talked of the many difficulties before us, and
doubted of our success. I said, grandiloquently enough, that no victory
was worth winning unless there were difficulties. At which she smiled
and remarked, laughing--

"There are no roses without thorns."

She asked me how long the war would last. I replied that the good God
alone knew. She shook her head--

"How can the good God look down without a tear on the miseries of his
people? Are not the flower of the young cut off in the spring of their
youth?"

Then she pointed to the church across the way, and said humbly--"On a
beaucoup prie."

She was of the true Flemish type, broad and big-breasted, but with a
slight stoop, thick hips, dark and fresh-coloured, with large black eyes
set too closely. Like all the Flemings, she spoke French slowly and
distinctly, with an accent like the German. She was easy to understand.

I stopped too long at Poperinghe, for it was dark and very misty on the
road. Beyond Boescheppe--I was out of my way--the mist became a fog.
Once I had to take to the ditch when some cuirassiers galloped out of
the fog straight at me. It was all four French soldiers could do to get
my motor-cycle out. Another time I stuck endeavouring to avoid some
lorries. It is a diabolical joke of the Comic Imps to put fog upon a
greasy road for the confusion of a despatch rider.

On the next day I was sent out to the 14th Brigade at the Rue de Paradis
near Laventie. You will remember that the 14th Brigade had been left to
strengthen the Indian Corps when the 2nd Corps had moved north. I
arrived at Rue de Paradis just as the Brigade Headquarters were coming
into the village. So, while everybody else was fixing wires and
generally making themselves useful, I rushed upstairs and seized a
mattress and put it into a dark little dressing-room with hot and cold
water, a mirror and a wardrobe. Then I locked the door. There I slept,
washed, and dressed in delicious luxury.

The brigade gave another despatch rider and myself, who were attached,
very little to do beyond an occasional forty-mile run to D.H.Q. and back
over dull roads. The signal office was established in a large room on
the side of the house nearest to the Germans. It was constructed almost
entirely of glass. Upon this the men commented with a grave fluency. The
windows rattled with shrapnel bursting 600 yards away. The house was
jarred through