to London. No
Canadians there! I caught sight of a military picket, sergeant and twelve
men, looking for stray ones, though. Another picket held me up and made me
button my greatcoat. I did! It isn't clever to argue with pickets at any
time!

The train was three hours late. Troops' trains were occupying the lines.
From Bulford we walked home in a hail-storm. Got in about five o'clock
just as the reveille was blowing in the other lines. They were just
leaving for the front, and had made great fires where they were burning up
rubbish and stuff they couldn't take with them. Tons of it! Chairs,
mattresses, and tables. When we move, everything except equipment has to
be discarded. We can't do anything with extras. We have to cut our own
stuff down to the very smallest dimensions. I walked through the lines
afterward of other battalions who had left, and I saw fold-up bedsteads,
uniforms, equipment, books, buckets, washing-bowls, cartridges and stoves
of every conceivable kind and shape; hundreds, from the single "Beatrice"
to the big tiled heaters. Some tents were half full of blankets thrown in,
others with harness. All the government stuff is collected, but private
stuff is burnt.

In the army you soon realize that you have to make yourself comfortable
your own way. I don't hesitate to take anything. If I have on a pair of
puttees which are a bit worn and I find a new pair,--well, I just calmly
yet cautiously annex them and discard the old ones. We found a barrel of
beer had been left by one of the other units, so we carefully carried the
prize to our lines and then tapped it. Zowie! It was a beer barrel all
right, only it was filled with linseed oil.

-------------------------------------

Thank the Lord!! Under a roof, sitting on a real chair; tablecloth,
plates; and I'm dry. We have come to Wilton (of carpet fame) and I'm in a
billet. I have a real bed to sleep in. Last night I lay on the floor of a
mildewed tent; couldn't sleep on account of the cold. To-night I sleep
between sheets, and the wonderful thing is that I'm not on leave.

We drove our cars down here, each of us hoping that we would never again
see Bustard Camp, Salisbury Plain, as long as we lived; it had been our
home for five months. Yesterday we felt like mutiny; to-day every one is
smiling. As soon as we were "told off" Pat and I went to our billet, a
nice clean little house close to the center of the town. The owner is a
baker.