heir companies it was sometimes very
late indeed; but as the campaign went on, orders got more and more
simplified somehow, and things got done quicker than at the beginning
of the _premier pas_.

The country through which we were passing was that technically
described by novelists as "smiling." That is to say, it was pretty, in
a mild sort of way, clean, green, with tidy farmhouses and cottages,
and fields about ripe for the harvest. Plenty of orchards there were
too, with lots of fruit-trees alongside the roads, and the people were
most kind in offering us fruit and milk and water and coffee and even
wine as we went along. But this could not be allowed on the march, as
it would have led to men falling out without permission, and also to
drinking more than was good for them whilst marching. Except,
therefore, occasionally, and then only during the ten minutes' halt
that we had in each hour, I did not allow these luxuries to be
accepted.

Gommignies was a nice shady little town, and the Notaire gave me an
excellent bedroom in his big house; whilst I remember that I made
acquaintance there with the excellent penny cigar of the country.

_Aug. 22nd._

Off at cock-crow next day, the country got uglier, blacker, more
industrial, and more thickly populated as we pushed on through the
heat, and by the time we crossed the Belgian frontier we felt indeed
that we were in another land.

The beastly paved road with cobbles, just broad enough for one vehicle
and extremely painful to the feet, whilst the remainder of the road on
both sides was deep in dust or caked mud, was a most offensive
feature; the people staring and crowding round the troops were quite a
different type from the courteous French peasants; and whilst in
France not a single able-bodied civilian had been visible--all having
joined the Army--in Belgium the streets were crowded with men who, we
felt most strongly, ought to have been fighting in the ranks.

There was a great block in Dour, which we reached after a
fourteen-mile march, and in spite of all attempts at keeping the
streets clear it was some time before we could get through. Part of
the Division was halting there for the night, and the municipal
authorities were extremely slow in allotting billets and keeping their
civilian waggons in order.

From Dour onwards it was a big straggling sort of suburban
town--tramways down the side, dirty little houses lining the street,
great chimneys belching (