“Reveille went at 5.30 yesterday morning.  We had breakfast in bed at 6.  It was arranged by Major Brighten that the Battalion should leave the city by platoons, each platoon moving off at five minutes interval from the ones in front and behind of it.  I moved off with the seventh platoon at 8.10.  We marched through the city as happily as if we were a Sunday School trip, looking at the magnificent ruins as we passed.  Scarcely a gun was fired on either side the whole time.  Things were extraordinarily quiet.  On any ordinary occasion we would have been observed by the enemy aircraft and strafed like ——­; but fortunately it was very dull at the time, the clouds precluding observation.  The weather was in our favour.  The whole Battalion got safely away without a single casualty!  An astonishing feat.  Major Brighten has reason to feel very pleased with himself.  We marched along the road for a distance of about four miles, and then halted and concentrated; then we marched on together and at 10 a.m. reached the transport camp where I first appeared last Tuesday evening.  Here the Battalion was halted and left to have lunch.  The officers were allowed to go into the town (Poperinghe) and have lunch there if they wished.  Donald Allen, the commander of the fifth platoon, and I, got lifts on two motors down to the town.  Then we had baths at the Divisional Baths there.  We then set off to the Officers’ Club for lunch; but just before we got there two other officers called out to us from the opposite side of the road.  They inquired whether we were going to the Club; and when we replied that we were, they exclaimed:  ’Don’t; the C.O.’s there!’

“‘Who? The C.O.—­Colonel Best-Dunkley?’ we asked.

“‘Yes,’ was the reply.  So we jolly well did not go; we went to a restaurant instead!  Apparently Colonel Best-Dunkley had now returned.  Everybody was very fed up at his return.

“At 2 we turned up at the station.  The news of the Commanding Officer’s return had already spread throughout the Battalion.  We got our platoons entrained, and then proceeded to the officers’ carriages.  It was rumoured that Colonel Best-Dunkley was going to travel by a particular carriage.  You should have seen how that carriage was boycotted!  Nobody would go into it.  They preferred to crowd out the other carriages and leave the tainted carriage empty.  It was most noticeable.  I do not think there is a single person in the Battalion who would not rather travel with the devil incarnate than with Colonel Best-Dunkley.

“He appeared on the scene shortly.  There was a flutter of low mutterings as he appeared.  I was very interested to see this extraordinary man of whom I had heard so much.  He stopped two or three doors away from our own and stood talking to someone inside the carriage.  He is small, clean-shaven, with a crooked nose and a noticeable blink.  He looks harmless enough; but I noticed something about his eyes which did not look exactly pleasant.