The second kind of work consists in riding along a road already known.  A clever despatch rider may reduce this to a fine art.  He knows exactly at which corner he is likely to be sniped, and hurries accordingly.  He remembers to a yard where the sentries are.  If the road is under shell fire, he recalls where the shells usually fall, the interval between the shells and the times of shelling.  For there is order in everything, and particularly in German gunnery.  Lastly, he does not race along with nose on handle-bar.  That is a trick practised only by despatch riders who are rarely under fire, who have come to a strange and alarming country from Corps or Army Headquarters.  The experienced motor-cyclist sits up and takes notice the whole time.  He is able at the end of his ride to give an account of all that he has seen on the way.

D.H.Q. were at Serches, a wee village in a hollow at the head of a valley.  So steeply did the hill rise out of the hollow to the north that the village was certainly in dead ground.  A fine road went to the west along the valley for three miles or so to the Soissons-Rheims road.  For Venizel you crossed the main road and ran down a little hill through a thick wood, terribly dark of nights, to the village; you crossed the bridge and opened the throttle.

The first time I rode north from Venizel, Moulders was with me.  On the left a few hundred yards away an ammunition section that had crossed by the pontoon was at full gallop.  I was riding fast—­the road was loathsomely open—­but not too fast, because it was greasy.  A shell pitched a couple of hundred yards off the road, and then others, far enough away to comfort me.

A mile on the road bends sharp left and right over the railway and past a small factory of some sort.  The Germans loved this spot, and would pitch shells on it with a lamentable frequency.  Soon it became too much of a routine to be effective.  On shelling-days three shells would be dropped one after another, an interval of three minutes, and then another three.  This we found out and rode accordingly.

A hundred yards past the railway you ride into Bucy-le-Long and safety.  The road swings sharp to the right, and there are houses all the way to St Marguerite.

Once I was riding with despatches from D.H.Q.  It was a heavy, misty day.  As I sprinted across the open I saw shrapnel over St Marguerite, but I could not make out whether it was German shrapnel bursting over the village or our shrapnel bursting over the hills beyond.  I slowed down.

Now, as I have told you, on a motor-cycle, if you are going rapidly, you cannot hear bullets or shells coming or even shells bursting unless they are very near.  Running slowly on top, with the engine barely turning over, you can hear everything.  So I went slow and listened.  Through the air came the sharp “woop-wing” of shrapnel bursting towards you, the most devilish sound of all.  Some prefer the shriek of shrapnel to the dolorous wail and deep thunderous crash of high explosive.  But nothing frightens me so much as the shrapnel-shriek.[14]