When I returned to Bailleul, Divisional Headquarters were about to move.

A puncture kept me at Bailleul after the others had gone on to Locre.  Grimers stood by to help.  We lunched well, and buying some supplies started off along the Ypres road.  By this time our kit had accumulated.  It is difficult enough to pass lorries on a greasy road at any time.  With an immense weight on the carrier it is almost impossible.  So we determined to go by Dranoutre.  An unfortunate bump dispersed my blankets and my ground-sheet in the mud.  Grimers said my language might have dried them.  Finally, that other despatch rider arrived swathed about with some filthy, grey, forlorn indescribables.

We were quartered in a large schoolroom belonging to the Convent.  We had plenty of space and a table to feed at.  Fresh milk and butter we could buy from the nuns, while a market-gardener just across the road supplied us with a sack of miscellaneous vegetables—­potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, leeks—­for practically nothing.  We lived gloriously.  There was just enough work to make us feel we really were doing something, and not enough to make us wish we were on the Staff.  Bridge we played every hour of the day, and “Pollers,” our sergeant, would occasionally try a little flutter in Dominoes and Patience.

At Bailleul the Skipper had suggested our learning to manage the unmechanical horse.  The suggestion became an order.  We were bumped round unmercifully at first, until many of us were so sore that the touch of a motor-cycle saddle on pave was like hot-iron to a tender skin.  Then we were handed over to a friendly sergeant, who believed in more gentlemanly methods, and at Locre we had great rides—­though Pollers, who was gently unhorsed, is still firmly convinced that wind-mills form the finest deterrent to cavalry.

In an unlucky moment two of us had suggested that we should like to learn signaller’s work, so we fell upon evil days.  First we went out for cable-drill.  Sounds simple?  But it is more arduous and dangerous than any despatch riding.  If you “pay out” too quickly, you get tangled up in the wire and go with it nicely over the drum.  If you pay out too slowly, you strangle the man on the horse behind you.  The worst torture in the world is paying out at the fast trot over cobbles.  First you can’t hold on, and if you can you can’t pay out regularly.

Cable-drill is simply nothing compared to the real laying of cable.  We did it twice—­once in rain and once in snow.  The rainy day I paid out, I was never more miserable in my life than I was after two miles.  Only hot coffee and singing good songs past cheery Piou-pious brought me home.  The snowy day I ran with ladders, and, perched on the topmost rung, endeavoured to pass the wire round a buxom tree-trunk.  Then, when it was round, it would always go slack before I could get it tied up tightly.