usterous, very dark, wet with heavy rain. The door opened, and other
officers came in with waterproofs sagging round their legs and top-boots
muddy to the tags, abashed because they made pools of water on polished
boards.

"Pardon, Madame."

"Ca ne fait rien, Monsieur."

There was a klip-klop of horses' hoofs in the yard. I thought of
D'Artagnan and the Musketeers who might have ridden into this very yard,
strode into this very room, on their way to Dunkirk or Calais. Madame
played the piano remarkably well, classical music of all kinds, and any
accompaniment to any song. Our young officers sang. Some of them touched
the piano with a loving touch and said, "Ye gods, a piano again!" and
played old melodies or merry ragtime. Before Passchendaele was taken a
Canadian boy brought a fiddle with him, and played last of all, after
other tunes, "The Long, Long Trail," which his comrades sang.

"Come and play to us again," said Madame.

"If I come back," said the boy.

He did not come back along the road through Ypres to Cassel.

From the balcony one could see the nightbirds fly. On every moonlight
night German raiders were about bombing our camps and villages. One
could see just below the hill how the bombs crashed into St.-Marie
Capelle and many hamlets where British soldiers lay, and where peasants
and children were killed with them. For some strange reason Cassel
itself was never bombed.

"We are a nest of spies," said some of the inhabitants, but others had
faith in a miraculous statue, and still others in Sir Herbert Plumer.

Once when a big shell burst very close I looked at Mademoiselle Suzanne
behind the desk. She did not show fear by the flicker of an eyelid,
though officers in the room were startled.

"Vous n'avez pas peur, meme de la mort?" ("You are not afraid, even of
death?") I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Je m'en fiche de la mort!" ("I don't care a damn for death!")

The Hotel du Sauvage was a pleasant rendezvous, but barred for a time to
young gentlemen of the air force, who lingered too long there sometimes
and were noisy. It was barred to all officers for certain hours of
the day without special permits from the A.P.M., who made trouble in
granting them. Three Scottish officers rode down into Cassel. They had
ridden down from hell-fire to sit at a table covered with a table-cloth,
and drink tea in a room again. They were refused permission, and their
language to me about the A.P.M. was