We had been given a cook of our own.  He was a youth of dreamy habits and acquisitive tastes, but sometimes made a good stew.  Each one of us thought he himself was talented beyond the ordinary, so the cook never wanted assistance—­except perhaps in the preparing of breakfast.  Food was good and plentiful, while the monotony of army rations was broken by supplies from home and from Bethune.  George, thank heaven, was still with us.

Across the bridge was a shop where you could buy anything from a pair of boots to a kilo of vermicelli.  Those of us who were not on duty would wander in about eleven in the morning, drink multitudinous bowls of coffee at two sous the bowl, and pass the time of day with some of the cyclists who were billeted in the big brewery.  Just down the road was a tavern where infernal cognac could be got and occasionally good red wine.

Even when there was little to do, the station was not dull.  French hussars, dainty men with thin and graceful horses, rode over the bridge and along the canal every morning.  Cuirassiers would clatter and swagger by—­and guns, both French and English.  Behind the station much ammunition was stored, a source of keen pleasure if ever the Germans had attempted to shell the station.  It was well within range.  During the last week His Majesty’s armoured train, “Jellicoe,” painted in wondrous colours, would rumble in and on towards La Bassee.  The crew were full of Antwerp tales and late newspapers.  The first time the train went into action it demolished a German battery, but afterwards it had little luck.

The corps was at Hinges.  If work were slack and the Signal Sergeant were kind, he would give one of us a bunch of messages for the corps, with the hint that the return might be made at leisure.  Between Hinges and Beuvry lay Bethune.  Hinges deserves a word.

When first the corps came to Hinges, the inhabitants were exalted.  The small boys came out in puttees and the women put ribbons in their hair.  Now, if you pronounce Hinges in the French fashion, you give forth an exclamation of distressful pain.  The name cannot be shouted from a motor-cycle.  It has its difficulties even for the student of French.  So we all called it, plainly and bluntly, Hinges, as though it were connected to a door.  The inhabitants noticed this.  Thinking that they and their forefathers had been wrong—­for surely these fine men with red hats knew better than they—­the English pronunciation spread.  The village became ’Ingees, and now only some unfashionable dotards in Bethune preserve the tradition of the old pronunciation.  It is not only Hinges that has been thus decently attired in British garb.  Le Cateau is Lee Catoo.  Boescheppe is Bo-peep.  Ouderdon is Eiderdown.