turning
safely to Abbeville, they would write hair-raising accounts of the
dangers they had passed through to the motor-cycling papers. It is only
right that I should here once and for all confess--there is no finer
teller of tall stories than the motor-cyclist despatch rider....

From December to February the only time I was under shell fire was late
in December, when the Grand Attack was in full train. A certain brigade
headquarters had taken refuge inconsiderately in advanced dug-outs. As I
passed along the road to them some shrapnel was bursting a quarter of a
mile away. So long was it since I had been under fire that the noise of
our own guns disturbed me. In the spring, after I had left the Signal
Company, the roads were not so healthy. George experienced the delights
of a broken chain on a road upon which the Germans were registering
accurately with shrapnel. Church, a fine fellow, and quite the most
promising of our recruits, was killed in his billet by a shell when
attached to a brigade.

Taking the post rarely meant just a pleasant spin, because it rained in
Flanders from September to January.

One day I started out from D.H.Q. at 3.30 P.M. with the afternoon post,
and reached the First Brigade well up to time. Then it began to rain, at
first slightly, and then very heavily indeed, with a bagful of wind. On
a particularly open stretch of road--the rain was stinging sharply--the
engine stopped. With a heroic effort I tugged the bicycle through some
mud to the side of a shed, in the hope that when the wind changed--it
did not--I might be under cover. I could not see. I could not grip--and
of course I could not find out what the matter was.

After I had been working for about half an hour the two artillery
motor-cyclists came along. I stopped them to give me a hand and to do as
much work as I could possibly avoid doing myself while preserving an
appearance of omniscience.

We worked for an hour or more. It was now so dark that I could not
distinguish one motor-cyclist from another. The rain rained faster than
it had ever rained before, and the gale was so violent that we could
scarcely keep our feet. Finally, we diagnosed a complaint that could not
be cured by the roadside. So we stopped working, to curse and admire
the German rockets.

There was an estaminet close by. It had appeared shut, but when we began
to curse a light shone in one of the windows. So I went in and settled
to take one of the artillery