y is taken here, but French is more satisfactory as you
are likely to get done on the change. The officers have a mess here just
as in England. Actually we are farther away from the firing line than we
were in camp at Bisley; but we leave to-day on our machines going direct
to it. There was a transport torpedoed just outside; they managed to beach
her just in time. The upper decks and masts are sticking up above water.

Since I last wrote anything in this diary we have ridden over one hundred
and ten miles by road towards the firing line. All day yesterday it
poured. The country was beautiful, ripening corn everywhere, the villages
are full of old half-timbered houses, the roads are all national roads
built for war purposes by Napoleon, and run straight; on either side are
tall, poplar shade trees, so that the roads run through endless avenues.

At night we stayed in a quaint village inn. The men all slept in a loft
over their machines. Our soaked clothes were put in the kitchen to dry,
but owing to the number of them, they just warmed up by the morning. One
officer has to follow in the rear of every unit to pick up the stragglers.
I had to bring up the rear of the column to-day--result: I didn't get in
until early in the morning, only to find the other subalterns "sawing
wood."

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Yesterday was the French National Day. We were cheered as we rode along,
and women and children smothered us with flowers. In the morning a funeral
of two small children passed us. Our battery commander called the battery
to attention and officers saluted. The priest was two days overdue with
his shave--soldiers notice things like that, you know.

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To-day we continued our ride; the weather was much better--dried our
clothes by wearing them. Strange to run through Normandy villages and
suddenly come across British Tommies--many of them speaking French. A Royal
Navy car has just passed us; our navy seems omnipresent. I saw an old
woman reading a letter by the side of an old farmhouse to some old people,
evidently from a soldier, probably their son. It reminded me a great deal
of one of Millet's pictures. Every one thinks of the war here and nothing
but the war; it's not "Business as Usual."

We stay here one night and move away to-morrow. We can hear the guns
faintly.

The three section officers, myself and two others, are sleep