“There are no roses without thorns.”

She asked me how long the war would last.  I replied that the good God alone knew.  She shook her head—­

“How can the good God look down without a tear on the miseries of his people?  Are not the flower of the young cut off in the spring of their youth?”

Then she pointed to the church across the way, and said humbly—­“On a beaucoup prie.”

She was of the true Flemish type, broad and big-breasted, but with a slight stoop, thick hips, dark and fresh-coloured, with large black eyes set too closely.  Like all the Flemings, she spoke French slowly and distinctly, with an accent like the German.  She was easy to understand.

I stopped too long at Poperinghe, for it was dark and very misty on the road.  Beyond Boescheppe—­I was out of my way—­the mist became a fog.  Once I had to take to the ditch when some cuirassiers galloped out of the fog straight at me.  It was all four French soldiers could do to get my motor-cycle out.  Another time I stuck endeavouring to avoid some lorries.  It is a diabolical joke of the Comic Imps to put fog upon a greasy road for the confusion of a despatch rider.

On the next day I was sent out to the 14th Brigade at the Rue de Paradis near Laventie.  You will remember that the 14th Brigade had been left to strengthen the Indian Corps when the 2nd Corps had moved north.  I arrived at Rue de Paradis just as the Brigade Headquarters were coming into the village.  So, while everybody else was fixing wires and generally making themselves useful, I rushed upstairs and seized a mattress and put it into a dark little dressing-room with hot and cold water, a mirror and a wardrobe.  Then I locked the door.  There I slept, washed, and dressed in delicious luxury.

The brigade gave another despatch rider and myself, who were attached, very little to do beyond an occasional forty-mile run to D.H.Q. and back over dull roads.  The signal office was established in a large room on the side of the house nearest to the Germans.  It was constructed almost entirely of glass.  Upon this the men commented with a grave fluency.  The windows rattled with shrapnel bursting 600 yards away.  The house was jarred through and through by the concussion of a heavy battery firing over our heads.  The room was like a toy-shop with a lot of small children sounding all the musical toys.  The vibrators and the buzzers were like hoarse toy trumpets.

Our only excitement was the nightly rumour that the General was going to move nearer the trenches, that one of us would accompany him—­I knew what that meant on greasy misty roads.

After I had left, the Germans by chance or design made better practice.  A shell burst in the garden and shattered all the windows of the room.  The Staff took refuge in dug-outs that had been made in case of need.  Tommy, then attached, took refuge in the cellar.  According to his own account, when he woke up in the morning he was floating.  The house had some corners taken off it and all the glass was shattered, but no one was hurt.