Ireland was a disappointment.  Everybody was dirty and unfriendly, staring at us with hostile eyes.  Add Dublin grease, which beats the Belgian, and a crusty garage proprietor who only after persuasion supplied us with petrol, and you may be sure we were glad to see the last of it.  The road to Carlow was bad and bumpy.  But the sunset was fine, and we liked the little low Irish cottages in the twilight.  When it was quite dark we stopped at a town with a hill in it.  One of our men had a brick thrown at him as he rode in, and when we came to the inn we didn’t get a gracious word, and decided it was more pleasant not to be a soldier in Ireland.  The daughter of the house was pretty and passably clean, but it was very grimly that she had led me through an immense gaudy drawing-room disconsolate in dust wrappings, to a little room where we could wash.  She gave us an exiguous meal at an extortionate charge, and refused to put more than two of us up; so, on the advice of two gallivanting lancers who had escaped from the Curragh for some supper, we called in the aid of the police, and were billeted magnificently on the village.

A moderate breakfast at an unearthly hour, a trouble with the starting up of our bikes, and we were off again.  It was about nine when we turned into Carlow Barracks.

The company sighed with relief on seeing us.  We completed the establishment on mobilisation.  Our two “artificers,” Cecil and Grimers, had already arrived.  We were overjoyed to see them.  We realised that what they did not know about motor-cycles was not worth knowing, and we had suspected at Chatham what we found afterwards to be true, that no one could have chosen for us pleasanter comrades or more reliable workers.

A fine breakfast was soon prepared for us and we begun looking round.  The position should have been a little difficult—­a dozen or so ’Varsity men, very fresh from their respective universities, thrown as corporals at the head of a company of professional soldiers.  We were determined that, whatever vices we might have, we should not be accused of “swank.”  The sergeants, after a trifle of preliminary stiffness, treated us with fatherly kindness, and did all they could to make us comfortable and teach us what we wanted to learn.

Carlow was a fascinating little town.  The National Volunteers still drilled just behind the barracks.  It was not wise to refer to the Borderers or to Ulster, but the war had made all the difference in the world.  We were to represent Carlow in the Great War.  Right through the winter Carlow never forgot us.  They sent us comforts and cigarettes and Christmas Puddings.  When the 5th Signal Company returns, Carlow will go mad.

My first “official” ride was to Dublin.  It rained most of the way there and all the way back, but a glow of patriotism kept me warm.  In Dublin I went into a little public-house for some beer and bread and cheese.  The landlord told me that though he wasn’t exactly a lover of soldiers, things had changed now.  On my return I was given lunch in the Officers’ Mess, for nobody could consider their men more than the officers of our company.