As for the long line of “postmen” that stretched back into the dim interior of France—­it was rarely that they even heard the guns.  When they did hear them, they would, I am afraid, pluck a racing helmet from their pockets, draw the ear-flaps well down over their ears, bend down over their racing handle-bars, and sprint for dear life.  Returning safely to Abbeville, they would write hair-raising accounts of the dangers they had passed through to the motor-cycling papers.  It is only right that I should here once and for all confess—­there is no finer teller of tall stories than the motor-cyclist despatch rider....

From December to February the only time I was under shell fire was late in December, when the Grand Attack was in full train.  A certain brigade headquarters had taken refuge inconsiderately in advanced dug-outs.  As I passed along the road to them some shrapnel was bursting a quarter of a mile away.  So long was it since I had been under fire that the noise of our own guns disturbed me.  In the spring, after I had left the Signal Company, the roads were not so healthy.  George experienced the delights of a broken chain on a road upon which the Germans were registering accurately with shrapnel.  Church, a fine fellow, and quite the most promising of our recruits, was killed in his billet by a shell when attached to a brigade.

Taking the post rarely meant just a pleasant spin, because it rained in Flanders from September to January.

One day I started out from D.H.Q. at 3.30 P.M. with the afternoon post, and reached the First Brigade well up to time.  Then it began to rain, at first slightly, and then very heavily indeed, with a bagful of wind.  On a particularly open stretch of road—­the rain was stinging sharply—­the engine stopped.  With a heroic effort I tugged the bicycle through some mud to the side of a shed, in the hope that when the wind changed—­it did not—­I might be under cover.  I could not see.  I could not grip—­and of course I could not find out what the matter was.

After I had been working for about half an hour the two artillery motor-cyclists came along.  I stopped them to give me a hand and to do as much work as I could possibly avoid doing myself while preserving an appearance of omniscience.

We worked for an hour or more.  It was now so dark that I could not distinguish one motor-cyclist from another.  The rain rained faster than it had ever rained before, and the gale was so violent that we could scarcely keep our feet.  Finally, we diagnosed a complaint that could not be cured by the roadside.  So we stopped working, to curse and admire the German rockets.

There was an estaminet close by.  It had appeared shut, but when we began to curse a light shone in one of the windows.  So I went in and settled to take one of the artillery motor-cycles and deliver the rest of my quite unimportant despatches.  It would not start.  We worked for twenty minutes in the rain vainly, then a motor-cyclist turned up from the nearest brigade to see what had become of me,—­the progress of the post is checked over the wire.  We arranged matters—­but then neither his motor-cycle nor the motor-cycle of the second artillery motor-cyclist would start.  It was laughable.  Eventually we got the brigade despatch rider started with my report.