[Illustration:  Cooking under difficulties.]

After the excitement of dodging shells and bullets in the front trenches, life in billets seems dull.  Tommy has too much time to get into mischief.  It was at Petite-Saens that I first saw the Divisional Folies.  This was a vaudeville show by ten men who had been actors in civil life, and who were detailed to amuse the soldiers.  They charged a small admission fee and the profit went to the Red Cross.

There ought to be more recreation for the soldiers of all armies.  The Y.M.C.A. is to take care of that with our boys.

By the way, we had a Y.M.C.A. hut at Petite-Saens, and I cannot say enough for this great work.  No one who has not been there can know what a blessing it is to be able to go into a clean, warm, dry place and sit down to reading or games and to hear good music.  Personally I am a little bit sorry that the secretaries are to be in khaki.  They weren’t when I left.  And it sure did seem good to see a man in civilian’s clothes.  You get after a while so you hate the sight of a uniform.

Another thing about the Y.M.C.A.  I could wish that they would have more women in the huts.  Not frilly, frivolous society girls, but women from thirty-five to fifty.  A soldier likes kisses as well as the next.  And he takes them when he finds them.  And he finds too many.  But what he really wants, though, is the chance to sit down and tell his troubles to some nice, sympathetic woman who is old enough to be level-headed.

Nearly every soldier reverts more or less to a boyish point of view.  He hankers for somebody to mother him.  I should be glad to see many women of that type in the Y.M.C.A. work.  It is one of the great needs of our army that the boys should be amused and kept clean mentally and morally.  I don’t believe there is any organization better qualified to do this than the Y.M.C.A.

Most of our chaps spent their time “on their own” either in the Y.M.C.A. hut or in the estaminets while we were in Petite-Saens.  Our stop there was hardly typical of the rest in billets.  Usually “rest” means that you are set to mending roads or some such fatigue duty.  At Petite-Saens, however, we had it “cushy.”

The routine was about like this:  Up at 6:30, we fell in for three-quarters of an hour physical drill or bayonet practice.  Breakfast.  Inspection of ammo and gas masks.  One hour drill.  After that, “on our own”, with nothing to do but smoke, read, and gamble.

Tommy is a great smoker.  He gets a fag issue from the government, if he is lucky, of two packets or twenty a week.  This lasts him with care about two days.  After that he goes smokeless unless he has friends at home to send him a supply.  I had friends in London who sent me about five hundred fags a week, and I was consequently popular while they lasted.  This took off some of the curse of being a lance corporal.

Tommy has his favorite in “fags” like anybody else.  He likes above all Wild Woodbines.  This cigarette is composed of glue, cheap paper, and a poor quality of hay.  Next in his affection comes Goldflakes—­pretty near as bad.