stration. In a well-known illustrated weekly a
recent frontispiece, supposedly drawn "from material supplied," depicts
a band of beaming Tommies, with weird water-bottles, haversacks,
mess-tins, and whatnots dangling from their sheepskin coats, throwing
caps and cheers high into the air as they greet the cliffs of England.
As the subject of an Academy picture, or an illustration for "The Hero's
Homecoming, or How a Bigamist Made Good," the sketch would be excellent.
But, except for the beaming faces, it is fanciful. A shadowy view of the
English coast-line draws a crowd to the starboard side of the boat,
whence one gazes long and joyfully at the dainty cliffs. Yet there is no
outward sign of excitement; the deep satisfaction felt by all is of too
intimate a nature to call for cheering and cap-throwing. The starboard
deck remains crowded as the shore looms larger, and until, on entry into
Dovstone harbour, one prepares for disembarkation.

The Front seemed very remote from the train that carried us from
Dovstone to London. How could one think of the wilderness with the
bright hop-fields of Kent chasing past the windows? Then came the
mass-meeting of brick houses that skirt London, and finally the tunnel
which is the approach to the terminus. As the wheels rumbled through the
darkness of it they suggested some lines of stray verse beginning--

"Twenty to eleven by all the clocks of Piccadilly;
Buy your love a lily-bloom, buy your love a rose."

It had been raining, and the faint yet unmistakable tang sniffed from
wet London streets made one feel at home more than anything else. We
dispersed, each to make his interval of heaven according to taste,
means, and circumstances. That same evening I was fortunate in being
helped to forget the realities of war by two experiences. A
much-mustached A.P.M. threatened me with divers penalties for the
wearing of a soft hat; and I was present at a merry gathering of
theatrical luminaries, enormously interested in themselves, but
enormously bored by the war, which usurped so much newspaper space that
belonged by rights to the lighter drama.

Curtain and interval of ten days, at the end of which I was offered a
place as passenger in a machine destined for my own squadron. The bus
was to be taken to an aircraft depot in France from Rafborough
Aerodrome. Rafborough is a small town galvanised into importance by its
association with flying. Years ago, in the far-away days when avia