O Jezebel, I wish I could get angry with you and give you a jolly good hiding one day.  But you know I can’t, you dear old thing.  I’m writing this in the orchard, where the H.Q. horses live, and Jezebel is standing sleepily in the shade of her tree.  She looks intensely stupid.  She occasionally tries to flick away a fly with her short tail.  Occasionally she sighs deeply, with that blubbery, spluttery noise that all horses make when they sigh.

August 15.

On the move.  This is our first day’s trek, and we are at a place where we have been before—­but not the same billets.  I am in a cottage with an earth floor (which looks very odd with a hideous drab-coloured wall-paper), and small children and hens, both dirty, wander in and out of my room.  It’s too hot to keep the door latched.  A swallow’s nest in the room next door; and the people say that, although the young have flown, they still return at night.

August 19.

The Adjutant is away, and won’t be returning for some time; so I am still acting.  And this, together with signal work, etc., is somewhat arduous.  I live all day in the “office,” a very small bivouac in a green field.  There I sit praying for inspiration, when letters come in marked Urgent, beginning something like this: 

     “LP/3657042—­G1.

     “Ref. your memo HC/516342/L12 of 13/8/16, please find A.F. 361B for
     completion and immediate return.”

And I haven’t the least idea what I said in my memo HC/516342/L12 of 13/8/16, and I can’t find any record of it.  And I can’t for the life of me make out how I am meant to fill in A.F. 361B, because I haven’t the least idea what it’s all about.

August 26.

[Sidenote:  BEHIND KEMMEL]

Impossible to write yesterday, and only a brief scrawl to-day.

The regiment is being scattered over the face of the earth—­an O.P. here, an O.P. there; a digging-party here, a draining-party there, etc., etc., etc.; not to mention a few on duty as military police pro tem., others guarding bomb shelters, others reconnoitring new areas for new divisions, etc.  Dennis is very badly wounded.  He can’t be moved yet.  Some bits of shell went into his thigh, up his back, and it’s not certain yet whether it entered his lungs or not.  They are afraid so.  He was on his tummy at an O.P.  A crump got him.  Dear old Dennis!  I hope he’ll pull round.  Also Clive is very seriously wounded, I fear.  Damn!

August 27.

I am Acting Adjutant now.  An Adjutant’s job is a most hairy job, and I sit with drops of perspiration dripping off my brow all day.  Never see the horses, never get any exercise except for a moment or two.

August 29.

We are probably going to move again soon, and consequently the amount of correspondence is vast.  Clive is better, I think.  Dennis about the same.  I suppose a thing can go into your lung and not kill you?