As we wound our way up the steep hill to Cassel with its narrow streets and high, Spanish-looking houses, the sun was setting and the country lay below us in a wonderful panorama.  The cherry-trees bordering the steep hill down the other side stood out like miniature snowstorms against the blue haze of the evening.  We got back to find the Saturday evening hop in progress (life still seemed to be formed of paradoxes).  It was held in the mess hut, where the bumpy line down the middle of the floor was appropriately called “Vimy Ridge,” and the place where the shell hole had been further up “Kennedy Crater.”  The floor was exceedingly springy just there, but it takes a good deal to “cramp the style” of a F.A.N.Y., and details of this sort only add to the general enjoyment.

The next day I went down to the old convoy and saw my beloved “Susan” again, apparently not one whit the worse for the valiant war work she had done.  Everything looked exactly the same, and to complete the picture, as I arrived, I saw two F.A.N.Y.s quietly snaffling some horses for a ride round the camp while their owners remained blissfully unconscious in the mess.  I felt things were indeed unchanged!

That evening I hunted out all my French friends.  The old flower lady in the Rue uttered a shriek, dropped her flowers, and embraced me again and again.  Then there was the Pharmacie to visit, the paper man, the pretty flapper, Monsieur and Madame from the “Omelette” Shop, and a host of others.  I also saw the French general.  For a moment he was puzzled—­obviously he “knew the face but couldn’t put a name to it,” then his eye fell on the ribbon. “Mon enfant,” was all he said, and without any warning he opened his arms and I received a smacking kiss on both cheeks! Quel emotion! Everyone was so delighted, I felt the burden of the last two years slipping off my shoulders.

Quite by chance I was put in my old original “cue.”  I counted the doors up the passage.  Yes, it must be the one, there could be no doubt about it, and on looking up at the walls I could just discern the shadowy outlines of the panthers through a new coating of colour-wash.

The hospital where I had been was shut up and empty, and was shortly going to become a Casino again.  How good it was to be back with the F.A.N.Y.s!  I had just caught them in time, for they were to be demobilised on the following Sunday and I began to realise, now that I was with them again, just how terribly I had missed their gay companionship.

It was a singular and happy coincidence that on the second anniversary of the day I lost my leg, I should be cantering over the same fields at Peuplinghe where “Flanders” had so gallantly pursued “puss” that day so long ago, or was it really only yesterday?

     FRANCE,
          May 9th, 1919.

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Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, England.