to find himself in Italy is only to discover
another lot of unfortunate people who cannot understand or make
themselves understood. A little thing like that, however, is not going
to be allowed to stand between friends; already new words and phrases
are being coined, mutually acceptable to both parties.

The first sign I saw of our arrival in this country was a derelict
mess-tin on a country station platform; at the next station I saw
a derelict rifle; at the next a whole derelict kit, and lastly a
complete-in-all-parts derelict soldier. He was surrounded by a small
crowd of native men, women and children, anxious to show their
appreciation of his nation by assisting himself. They were doing their
utmost to ascertain his needs; they were trying him with slices of
bread, a _fiasco_ of chianti, words of intense admiration, flowers. It
was none of these things he wanted; he had only missed his train and
wanted to know what to do about it. But how were they to know that?
When a Latin misses his train he doesn't sit down stolidly and think
slowly.

I went to his aid. From the manner in which he rose to salute me they
guessed that I was the Commander-in-Chief of all the English, and
were for giving me an ovation. Thomas explained his trouble to me in
half-a-dozen words; I solved it for him in even fewer. Thomas and I
quite understood each other, and there was no want of sympathy and
fellow-feeling between us. To the small crowd, however, this was the
extreme of brutal curtness. They now thought I was of the English
_carabinieri_, and that Thomas was being led off to his execution.
They were visibly cowed.

But the situation is not so simple and clearly defined as it was in
the first place. In the old days either we were English and they
weren't, or they were French and we weren't. There was no _tertium
quid_. Now things are more complicated. As Thomas and I stood on the
platform, loving each other silently and unostentatiously, a cheery
musical train of _poilus_ laboured into the station. There was nothing
silent or curt about them: they were all for bread and chianti and
flowers and ovations or any other old thing the crowd cared to offer.
Anything for a jest and to pass the time of day. Between the French
troops and the Italian crowd the matter was clear enough. Next-door
neighbours, molested by the same gang of roughs in the same brutal
manner, quite understand each other and the general situation when
they climb over