We got home in the end, and it was a great triumph.  The only unenthusiastic person was Mr. Brown, my batman, who surveyed the things in silence, betokening that he knew quite well he would be called upon to sew them up in sacking and label them “Officer’s Spare Kit, c/o Cox and Co.”  Then he looked sadly at my soiled tunic and my British warm and asked if I had carried them far.

“Over two miles,” I replied proudly.  “Pity,” he said; “there’s a whole dump of them at the bottom of the garden here.”

There the matter might have ended if the fat Roley had not lurched up again the next day with a steel box containing a dial-sight off a field-gun.  The dial-sight was a complicated affair of prisms and lenses which probably cost the Bosch about sixty pounds, and we felt a little sick at having overlooked such a find.

“Awful job I had too,” he went on.  “Some fellows were seen yesterday taking stuff away and they’ve put a sentry on the train.”

“Serve them right,” we said.

Next day we returned to the trucks to try again.  The sentry was engaged in a little conversation, and whilst Chardenal took his photograph (ostensibly for The Daily Snap as “Sentry Guarding a Train”) I slipped behind the trucks, opened a couple of lids in the tails of some field-guns, picked out two cases of sights and hurried off.  Chardenal joined me later and, concealing our swag under our British warms, we walked as quickly as we could until the Brigadier stopped and had a little chat with us about things in general.  And there we had to stand for a quarter of an hour on a freezing afternoon with two fingers holding the box and the other fingers holding the coat down to effect better concealment.  Chardenal was in so much pain and wore such an expression of agonized innocence that the Brigadier wanted him to come into headquarters until he felt better.

“Well, what have you got?” asked Carfax, another candidate for demobilisation, when we finally got back and showed him the cases.

“Only two?” he cried, “and you promised me one!” We said things.

“What lenses are they?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Chardenal, “but, whatever’s the heaviest kind, that’s the kind we’ve brought.”

And we opened the boxes and they were empty.

The baronial hall will remain unfurnished.  I’m fed up with the whole business.

L.

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[Illustration:  Farmer (to land-girl, who has been sent to feed the pigs).  “WHY HAVE YOU BROUGHT THE SWILL BACK?”

Land Girl.  “WELL, THEY WERE ASLEEP AND LOOKED SO COMFY—­I SIMPLY HADN’T THE HEART TO DISTURB THEM.”]

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THE LANGUAGE TEST FOR V.A.D.’S.

From an Official Form of Application for stripes:—­

“I certify that these Members have diligently attended their duties at the Hospital, are always neat in appearance, punctual in their habits and proficient in their cursing.  I recommend they be allowed to enter for the Blue Stripe Examination.”

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