Now the Colonel has only one fault (I have been definitely promised my second star in 1927, so he won’t think I am flattering him with a purpose):  he likes moustaches.  His own is admirable, and I have no wish for him to remove it, but I think he should be equally broad-minded about mine.

“You aren’t really more beautiful without it,” he said.  “A moustache suits you.”

“My wife doesn’t think so,” I said firmly.  I had the War Office on my side, so I could afford to be firm.

The Colonel looked at me, and then he looked out of the window, and made the following remarkable statement.

“Toby,” he said gently to himself, “doesn’t like clean-shaven officers.”

This hadn’t occurred to me; I let it sink in.

“Of course,” I said at last, “one must consider one’s horse.  I quite see that.”

“With a bicycle,” he said, “it’s different.”

And so there you have the second reason.  If the Bombing Officer rode Toby, I should shave again to-morrow, and then where would the Battalion be?  Ruined.

So Toby and I go off together.  Up till now he has been good to me.  He has bitten one Company Commander, removed another, and led the Colonel a three-mile chase across country after him, so if any misunderstanding occurs between us there will be good precedent for it.  So far my only real trouble has been once when billeting.

Billeting is delightful fun.  You start three hours in advance of the battalion, which means that if the battalion leaves at eight in the morning, you are up in the fresh of the day, when the birds are singing.  You arrive at the village and get from the Mayor or the Town Major a list of possible hostesses.  Entering the first house (labeled “Officers 5”) you say, “Vous avez un lit pour un Officier ici, n’est-ce pas?  Vive la France!” She answers, “Pas un lit,” and you go to the next house. “Vous avez place pour cent hommes—­oui?” “Non,” says she—­and so on.  By-and-by the battalion arrives, and everybody surrounds you.  “Where are my men going?” “Where is my billet?” “Where’s ‘C’ Company’s mess?” “Have you found anything for the Pioneers?” And so one knows what it is to be popular.

Well, the other day the Major thought he’d come with me, just to give me an idea how it ought to be done.  I say nothing of the result; but for reasons connected with Toby I hope he won’t come again.  For in the middle of a narrow street crowded with lorries, he jumped off his horse, flung (I think that’s the expression)—­flung me the reins and said, “Just wait here while I see the Mayor a moment.”

The Major’s horse I can describe quite shortly—­a nasty big black horse.

Toby I have already described as a nice horse, but he had been knee-deep in mud, inspecting huts, for nearly half an hour, and was sick of billeting.

I need not describe two-hundred-lorries-on-a-dark-evening to you.