e of miles away. Any distance over two miles we covered on
motor-cycles. Their use demoralised us. Our legs shrunk away.

Sometimes two or three of us would ride to a sand-pit on Mont Noir and
blaze away with our revolvers. Incidentally, not one of us had fired a
shot in anger since the war began. We treated our revolvers as
unnecessary luggage. In time we became skilled in their use, and
thereafter learnt to keep them moderately clean. We had been served out
with revolvers at Chatham, but had never practised with them--except at
Carlow for a morning, and then we were suffering from the effects of
inoculation. They may be useful when we get to Germany.

Shopping in Bailleul was less strenuous. We were always buying something
for supper--a kilo of liver, some onions, a few sausages--anything that
could be cooked by the unskilled on a paraffin-stove. Then after
shopping there were cafes we could drop into, sure of a welcome. It was
impossible to live from November to March "within easy reach of town"
and not make friends.

Milk for tea came from the farm in which No. 1 Section of the Signal
Company was billeted. When first we were quartered at St Jans this
section wallowed in some mud a little above the chateau.

Because I had managed to make myself understood to some German
prisoners, I was looked upon as a great linguist, and vulgarly credited
with a knowledge of all the European languages. So I was sent, together
with the Quartermaster-Sergeant and the Sergeant-Major, on billeting
expeditions. Arranging for quarters at the farm, I made great friends
with the farmer. He was a tall, thin, lithe old man, with a crumpled
wife and prodigiously large family. He was a man of affairs, too, for
once a month in peace time he would drive into Hazebrouck. While his
wife got me the milk, we used to sit by the fire and smoke our pipes and
discuss the terrible war and the newspapers. One of the most
embarrassing moments I have ever experienced was when he bade me tell
the sergeants that he regarded them as brothers, and loved them all. I
said it first in French, that he might hear, and then in English. The
sergeants blushed, while the old man beamed.

We loved the Flemish, and, for the most part, they loved us. When
British soldiers arrived in a village the men became clean, the women
smart, and the boys inevitably procured putties and wore them with
pride. The British soldier is certainly not insular. He tries hard to
understan