In the dwelling of the Staff there was noise of revelry.  Respectable captains with false noses peered out of windows.  Our Fat Boy declaimed in the signal office on the iniquities of the artillery telegraphists.  Sadders sent gentle messages of greeting over the wires.  He was still a little piqued at his failure to secure the piper of the K.O.S.B., who had been commandeered by the Staff.  Sadders waited for him until early morning and then steered him to our lodge, but the piper was by then too tired to play.

Here is our bill of fare:—­

CHRISTMAS, 1914.

DINNER
OF THE
TEN SURVIVING MOTOR-CYCLISTS OF THE
FAMOUS FIFTH DIVISION.

Sardins tres Moutard. 
Potage. 
Dindon Roti-Saucisses.  Oise Roti. 
Petits Choux de Bruxelles. 
Pommes de Terre. 
Pouding de Noel Rhum. 
Dessert.  Cafe.  Liqueurs.
Vins.—­Champagne.  Moselle.  Port. 
Benedictine.  Whisky.

On the reverse page we put our battle-honours—­Mons, Le Cateau, Crepy-en-Valois, the Marne, the Aisne, La Bassee, the Defence of Ypres.[28]

We beat the Staff on the sprouts, but the Staff countered by appropriating the piper.

Work dwindled until it became a farce.  One run for each despatch rider every third day was the average.  St Jans was not the place we should have chosen for a winter resort.  Life became monotonous, and we all with one accord began applying for commissions.  Various means were used to break the monotony.  Grimers, under the Skipper’s instructions, began to plant vegetables for the spring, but I do not think he ever got much beyond mustard and cress.  On particularly unpleasant days we were told off to make fascines.  N’Soon assisted the Quartermaster-Sergeant.  Cecil did vague things with the motor-lorry.  I was called upon to write the Company’s War Diary.  Even the Staff became restless and took to night-walks behind the trenches.  If it had not been for the generous supply of “days off” that the Skipper allowed us, we should by February have begun to gibber.

Despatches were of two kinds—­ordinary and priority.  “Priority” despatches could only be sent by the more important members of the Staff.  They were supposed to be important, were marked “priority” in the corner, and taken at once in a hurry.  Ordinary despatches went by the morning and evening posts.  During the winter a regular system of motor-cyclist posts was organised right through the British Area.  A message could be sent from Neuve Eglise to Chartres in about two days.  Our posts formed the first or last stage of the journey.  The morning post left at 7.30 A.M., and the evening at 3.30 P.M.  All the units of the division were visited.

If the roads were moderately good and no great movements of troops were proceeding, the post took about 1-1/4 hours; so the miserable postman was late either for breakfast or for tea.  It was routine work pure and simple.  After six weeks we knew every stone in the roads.  The postman never came under fire.  He passed through one village which was occasionally shelled, but, while I was with the Signal Company, the postman and the shells never arrived at the village at the same time.  There was far more danger from lorries and motor ambulances than from shells.