The magpie belonged to Russell, and came from Peuplinghe.  Magpies are supposed to be unlucky birds.  This one certainly brought no luck to its different owners.  Shortly after its arrival Russell was obliged to return to England for good.  Before going, however, she presented Jacques to Captain White at Val de Lievre.  Sure enough after some time he was posted to the Boche prisoner camp at Marquise—­a job he did not relish at all.  I don’t know if he took Jacques with him, but the place was bombed shortly after and the Huns killed many of their own men, and presumably Jacques as well.  So he did his bit for France.

The canaries belonged to Renny—­at least at first she had only one.  It happened in this wise.  The man at the disinfector (where we took our cars and blankets to be syringed after an infectious case), had had a canary given him by his “best girl” (French).  He did not want a canary and had nowhere to keep it, but, as he explained, he did not know enough of the language to say so, and thought the easiest way out of the difficulty was to accept it.  “Give me the bird, proper, she ’as,” he added.

The trouble was he did not reckon on her asking after it, which she most surely did.  He could hardly confess to her that he had passed the present on so instead he conveyed the news to her, somehow, that the “pore little bird had gone and died on ’im.”  She expressed her horror and forthwith produced a second!

“Soon ‘ave a bloomin’ aviary at this rate,” he remarked as he handed the second one over!  No more appeared, however, and the two little birds, both presumably dead, twittered and sang merrily the length of the “cues.”

As the better weather arrived so our work increased again, and in March the Germans began a retreat in the west along a front of 100 miles.  We worked early and late and reached the point of being able to drive almost asleep.  An extraordinary sensation—­you avoid holes, you slip the clutch over bumps, you stop when necessary, and go on ditto, and at the same time you can be having dreams!  More a state of coma than actual sleep, perhaps.  I think what happened was one probably slept for a minute and then woke up again to go off once more.

I became “Wuzzy’s” adopted mother about now and, whenever I had time, combed and brushed his silver curls till they stood out like fluff.  He could spot Susan miles away, and though it was against rules I sometimes took him on board.  As we neared camp I told him he must get down, but he would put on an obstinate expression and deliberately push himself behind my back, in between me and the canvas, so that I was almost on the steering wheel.  At other times he would listen to me for awhile, take it all in, and then put his head on my shoulder with such an appealing gesture that I used to risk being spotted, and let him remain.  He simply adored coming out if I was going riding, but I disliked having him intensely, for he ran about under the horses, nibbling at them and making himself a general nuisance.  He would watch me through half shut eyes the minute I began polishing my riding boots; and try as I would to evade him he nearly always came in the end.