Bailleul is famous for one thing alone—­its baths.  Just outside the town is a large and modern asylum that contains a good plunge-bath for the men and gorgeous hot baths for officers.  There are none better behind the line.  Tuesdays and Fridays were days of undiluted joy.

Armentieres is sprawling and ugly and full of dirt—­a correct and middle-class town that reminded me of Bristol.  In front of it are those trenches, of which many tales wandered up and down the line.  Here the Christmas truce is said to have been prolonged for three weeks or more.  Here the men are supposed to prefer their comfortable trenches to their billets, though when they “come out” they are cheered by the Follies and the Fancies.  On this section of the line is the notorious Plugstreet Wood, that show-place to which all distinguished but valuable visitors are taken.  Other corps have sighed for the gentle delights of this section of the line....

South-west from Armentieres the country is as level as it can be.  It is indeed possible to ride from Ypres to Bethune without meeting any hill except the slight ascent from La Clytte.  Steenwerck, Erquinghem, Croix du Bac, and, farther west, Merris and Vieux Berquin, have no virtue whatsoever.  There is little country flatter and uglier than the country between Bailleul and Bethune.

One morning Huggie, Cecil, and I obtained leave to visit Bethune and the La Bassee district.  It was in the middle of January, three months after we had left Beuvry.  We tore into Bailleul and bumped along the first mile of the Armentieres road.  That mile is without any doubt the most excruciatingly painful pave in the world.  We crossed the railway and raced south.  The roads were good and there was little traffic, but the sudden apparition of a motor-lorry round a sharp corner sent that other despatch rider into the ditch.  Estaires, as always, produced much grease.  It began to rain, but we held on by La Gorgue and Lestrem, halting only once for the necessary cafe-cognac.

We were stopped for our passes at the bridge into Bethune by a private of the London Scottish.  I rejoiced exceedingly, and finding Alec, took him off to a bath and then to the restaurant where I had breakfasted when first we came to Bethune.  The meal was as good as it had been three months before, and the flapper as charming.[29] After lunch we had our hair cut.  Then Cecil took us to the little blue-and-white cafe for tea.  She did play the piano, but two subalterns of the less combatant type came in and put us to flight.  A corporal is sometimes at such a disadvantage.

We rode along the canal bank to Beuvry Station, and found that our filthy old quarters had been cleaned up and turned into an Indian dressing-station.  We went on past the cross-roads at Gorre, where an Indian battalion was waiting miserably under the dripping trees.  The sun was just setting behind some grey clouds.  The fields were flooded with ochreous water.  Since last I had been along the road the country had been “searched” too thoroughly.  One wall of 1910 farm remained.  Chickens pecked feebly among the rest of it.