difference between life in billets and life in the
trenches. In billets the soldier "grouses" often, in trenches never.
This may be partly due to a very proper sense of proportion; it may also
be due to the fact that, the necessity for vigilance being relaxed and
the occasions for industry few, life in billets is apt to become a great
bore. The small Flemish and French towns offer few amenities; in our
mess we found our principal recreation in reunions with other
fraternities at the _patisserie_ or in an occasional mount. Of
_patisseries_ that at Bethune is the best; that at Poperinghe the worst.
Besides, the former has a piano and a most pleasing Mademoiselle. In the
earlier stages of our occupation some of the officers at G.H.Q. did a
little coursing and shooting, but there was trouble about _delits de
chasse_, and now you are allowed to shoot nothing but big game--namely,
Germans--although I have heard of an irresponsible Irishman in the
trenches who vaulted the parapet to bag a hare and, what is more
remarkable, returned with it. Needless to say, his neighbours were
Saxons. As for the men, their opportunities of relaxation are more
circumscribed. Much depends on the house in which they are billeted. If
there is a baby, you can take the part of mother's help; one of the most
engaging sights I saw was a troop of our cavalrymen (they may have been
the A.V.C.) riding through Armentieres, leading a string of remounts,
each remount with a laughing child on its back. Or, again, you can wash.
If you are not fortunate enough to be billeted at Bailleul, which has
the latest thing in baths, enabling men to be baptized, like
Charlemagne's reluctant converts, in platoons, you can always find a
pump. The spectacle of our men stripped to the waist sousing each other
with water under the pump is a source of standing wonder to the
inhabitants. I am not sure whether they think it indecent, or merely
eccentric; perhaps both. But then, as Anatole France has gravely
remarked, a profound disinclination to wash is no proof of chastity.
Besides, as one of the D.M.S.'s encyclicals has reminded us, cleanliness
of body is next to orderliness of kit. If you take carbolic baths you
may, with God's grace, escape one or more of the seven plagues of
Flanders. These seven are lice, flies, rats, rain, mud, smells, and
"souvenirs." The greatest of these is lice, for lice may mean
cerebro-meningitis. Owing to their unsportsmanlike and irritating habits