went on
explaining carefully to him how there could be no more Germany in the
end because the right must win! and he said, "So you say in England, but
we know otherwise in Deutschland, and I am a German." So as I am an
English we had to agree to differ. His faith in his _Vaterland_ nearly
made him cry and must have given him a temperature. I felt quite used up
afterwards. He is fast asleep now. There is also an old soldier of
sixty-three who says General French and General Smith-Dorrien
photographed him as the oldest soldier in the British Army. He has four
sons in it, one killed, two wounded. He was with General Low in the
Chitral Expedition, and is called Donald Macdonald, of the K.O.S.B.'s.
"Unfortunately I was reduced to the ranks for being drunk the other
day," he said gaily. "But the Captain he said, 'Don't lose 'eart,
Macdonald, you'll get it all back.'"

[Footnote 2: I have since found that no sort of evidence was brought
forward by the Germans to support this charge, and it is emphatically
denied by the Belgian authorities.]

_Wednesday, January 27th._--They have found a way of warming our
quarters when we have not an engine on. I don't know what we should
have done without it to-day; it is icy cold. Mails to-morrow, hurrah!
Going to turn in early.

_Thursday, January 28th._--Got to Boulogne this morning. Have been
getting stores in and repairs done; expect to be sent up any time. Sharp
frost and cold wind.

_Friday, January 29th._--One of those difficult-to-bear days; hung up
all day at a place beyond St Omer, listening to guns, and doing nothing
when there's so much to be done. The line is probably too busy to let us
up. It happens to be a dazzling blue day, which must be wiping off 50
per cent of the horrors of the Front. The other 50 per cent is what they
are out for, and see the meaning of.

We are to go on in an hour's time, "destination unknown."

_Saturday, January 30th._--We got up to Merville at one o'clock last
night, and loaded up only forty-five, and are now just going to load up
again at a place on the way back. We have been completely done out of
the La Bassee business; haven't been near it. No.-- Cl. H. that we saw
on December 27th, where S.C. and two more of my No.-- G.H. friends
were, had to be evacuated in a hurry, as several orderlies were killed
in the shelling.

One of my badly woundeds says "the Major" (whose servant he has been for
four years) asked him to make up the f