in words and
figures omitted from the following letter are the result of excisions
made by the Press Bureau censorship. They do not appear to have been
made on any intelligible principle.)

_June 12th, 1916._

I have been transferred from my old post of Requisitioning
Officer to Supply Officer, Cavalry Division Supply Column. I am
frankly and absolutely fed-up with this change! They tell me it
is promotion. Well, as I told my colonel, promotion of that kind
was not what I wanted. I loved my old job with its facilities for
exercising my French, and its comparative variety. Now I am
dignified with a job whose main element is seeing to the rations
being loaded on to the motor lorries that feed the division. I
have not even a chance of exercising my special faculty--that of
speaking French. I told my colonel I didn't want the job and
beseeched him to leave me with my brigade. He was adamant. My
late General wrote a personal letter to the A.S.C. colonel,
urging in the strongest terms that I should be left with the
brigade. Even to his appeal the only answer vouchsafed was: "The
change is equivalent to a promotion for the officer," and it is
"necessary for the satisfactory rationing of the division." The
colonel told me he was moving me (1) because I was good at
figures--me!; (2) because I was hard-working. They don't seem to
realise that, if what they said was true, I would have been a far
greater asset as a Requisitioning Officer. Oh, it does drive me
wild!

We had a brilliantly successful Divisional Horse Show last
Saturday. It proved a real triumph for the ---- Hussars of our
brigade--to my mind the best cavalry regiment in the Army. They
romped home easy firsts for the cup presented by the G.O.C. to
the regiment that got the greatest number of points in the
competitions. The classes for heavy and light chargers brought
out some magnificent horses. The well-known C.O. of the ----
Hussars was very much in evidence in all these classes. He is a
striking personality. With his hard, shrewd, red face, his
wonderfully thin legs, light-coloured breeches, beautifully-cut
tunic and high hat cocked over his left ear, he looked the
personification of the cavalry officer as we read about him in
novels. It would seem