ded out of anything. The
kitchen is a spacious place in which it is possible to cook without
great physical suffering. There are more flower beds, well-kept lines
between the tents, an impressive entrance. No doubt even the electric
light shines consistently. The days of makeshift are over and the
camp is a credit to the Expeditionary Force.

But I should not like to go back there again. I should be haunted
with memories of old days which were trying but pleasant. I should
wish myself back at one of the cheery tea-parties in the old canteen
kitchen, when we sat on packing-cases and biscuit-boxes, when we
shifted our seats about to dodge the raindrops from the roof, when we
drank out of three cracked cups and thick mugs borrowed from the
canteen.

I should remember pay-nights when the men stood before the counter in
a dense mob, all hungry, each holding in his hand a five-franc note,
when we had no change, not a franc, not a sou; when, in desperation,
I used to volunteer to collect change from any one who had it, giving
chits in exchange for small coins. Such crises do not arise now, I
suppose.

Sitting in comfort at a table in the fine new canteen I should
remember sadly a wet afternoon in the Church Army hut when there was
no room to move and the air was heavy with Woodbine smoke and the
steam of drying cloth, when I perched on the corner of a window-sill
and pitted myself against a chess player who challenged me suddenly
and turned out to be a master of the game and the secretary of a
chess club in Yorkshire.

I should remember, with how great regret! how, evening after evening,
Miss S. left her pots and pans, smoothed her tousled overall, and
came over to the Church Army hut to play a hymn for us at evening
prayers; how the men, an ever-changing congregation, chose the same
hymns night after night till we came to hate the sound of their
tunes; how we, reserving Sunday evenings for our property, chose the
hymn then and always chose the same one--which I shall never sing
again without remembering Miss S. at the piano, smelling the air of
that hut, and being troubled by a vision of the faces of the men who
sang.

I should not find Miss S. there if I went back, or Captain L., or any
one, almost, whom I knew. No doubt their successors are doing well,
mine better than ever I did, which would be no difficult thing; but I
could not bear to see them at their work. Ghosts of old days would
haunt me.

And worst of all