I was not alone now; a whole forest of second lieutenants like myself were in the same train, and with them a solid, congealed mass of valises, packs, revolvers and haversacks.  At last the train started, and after the usual hour spent in feeling that you have left all the most important things behind, I settled down on a mound of equipment and tried to do a bit of a sleep.

So what with sleeping, smoking and talking, we jolted along until we pulled up at Rouen.  Here I had to leave the train, for some obscure reason, in order to go to the Palais de Justice to get another ticket.  I padded off down over the bridge into Rouen, found the Palais, went in and was shown along to an office that dealt in tickets.

In this dark and dingy oak-panelled saloon, illuminated by electric light and the glittering reflections from gold braid, there lurked a general or two.  I was here given another pass entitling me to be deposited at a certain siding in Flanders.

Back I went to the station, and in due course rattled off in the train again towards the North.

A fearfully long journey we had, up to the Front!  The worst of it was that nobody knew—­or, if they did, wouldn’t tell you—­which way you were going, or how long it would take to get to your destination.  For instance, we didn’t know we were going to Rouen till we got there; and we didn’t know we were going from Rouen to Boulogne until, after a night spent in the train, the whole outfit jolted and jangled into the Gare de Something, down by the wharf at that salubrious seaport.

We spent a complete day and part of an evening at Boulogne, as our train did not leave until midnight.

[Illustration:  having a smoke]

I and another chap who was going to the next railhead to mine at the Front, went off together into the town and had lunch at a cafe in the High Street.  We then strolled around the shops, buying a few things we needed.  Not very attractive things either, but I’ll mention them here to show how we thought and felt.

We first went to a “pharmacie” and got some boxes of morphia tablets, after which we went to an ironmonger’s (don’t know the French for it) and each bought a ponderous pair of barbed wire cutters.  So what with wire clippers and morphia tablets, we were gay.  About four o’clock we calmed down a bit, and went to the same restaurant where we had lunched.

Here we had tea with a couple of French girls, exceeding good to look upon, who had apparently escaped from Lille.  We got on splendidly with them till a couple of French officers, one with the Legion of Honour, came along to the next table.  That took all the shine out of us, so we determined to quit, and cleared off to the Hotel de Folkestone, where we had a bath to console us.  Dinner followed, and then, feeling particularly hilarious, I made my will.  Not the approved will of family lawyer style, but just a letter announcing, in bald and harsh terms that, in the event of my remaining permanently in Belgium, I wanted my total small worldly wealth to be disposed of in a certain way.