cco.

It was now lunch-time--steak and potatoes.

The afternoon was spent on preparations for our great and unexampled
dinner. Grimers printed the menu, and while I made some cold curried
sardines, the rest went down into the village to stimulate the landlady
of the inn where we were going to dine.

In the village a brigade was billeted, and that brigade was, of course,
"on the wire." It was arranged that the despatch riders next on the list
should take their motor-cycles down and be summoned over the wire if
they were needed. An order had come round that unimportant messages were
to be kept until the morning.

We dined in the large kitchen of the _Maison Commune Estaminet_, at a
long table decorated with mistletoe and holly. The dinner--the result of
two days' "scrounging" under the direction of George--was too good to be
true. We toasted each other and sang all the songs we knew. Two of the
Staff clerks wandered in and told us we were the best of all possible
despatch riders. We drank to them uproariously. Then a Scotsman turned
up with a noisy recitation. Finally, we all strolled home up the hill
singing loudly and pleasantly, very exhilarated, in sure and certain
belief we had spent the best of all possible evenings.

In the dwelling of the Staff there was noise of revelry. Respectable
captains with false noses peered out of windows. Our Fat Boy declaimed
in the signal office on the iniquities of the artillery telegraphists.
Sadders sent gentle messages of greeting over the wires. He was still a
little piqued at his failure to secure the piper of the K.O.S.B., who
had been commandeered by the Staff. Sadders waited for him until early
morning and then steered him to our lodge, but the piper was by then too
tired to play.

Here is our bill of fare:--

CHRISTMAS, 1914.

DINNER
OF THE
TEN SURVIVING MOTOR-CYCLISTS OF THE
FAMOUS FIFTH DIVISION.

Sardins tres Moutard.
Potage.
Dindon Roti-Saucisses. Oise Roti.
Petits Choux de Bruxelles.
Pommes de Terre.
Pouding de Noel Rhum.
Dessert. Cafe. Liqueurs.
_Vins._--Champagne. Moselle. Port.
Benedictine. Whisky.

On the reverse page we put our battle-honours--Mons, Le Cateau,
Crepy-en-Valois, the Marne, the Aisne, La Bassee, the Defence of
Ypres.[28]

We beat the Staff on the sprouts, but the