es by our
roaring fires. Not till then did we feel justified in turning our
thoughts to the furnishing of the baronial hall at home.

Some day, we pivotal men are still ready to believe, when
demobilisation is nearly complete we shall return to our bowler hats
and civic respectability, but meantime, let me tell you, respectable
elderly subalterns _enjoy_ things like clambering over a forbidden
Bosch train in search of loot. When we had climbed to the end of the
trucks and were thoroughly dirty, we found we had done very badly.
The souvenirs were there all right, but no matter how interesting and
desirable it may be, you simply cannot pack up a field-gun and send it
home--the tail part does stick out so.

Chardenal and I had picked up the best thing we could find, brass
cartridge cases (about three feet high) of a 5.9 gun, and some shorter
eight-inch affairs. It was hard work. I carried four of the former and
Chardenal carried two of each, and we looked as if we had come to mend
a main drain. Not having been in the Army long enough to have lost all
sense of shame, Chardenal began by trying to hide his cases under his
British warm. His biggest effort at concealment was made when passing
the sentry of the Brigade Headquarters' guard, and the noise he made
doing it brought the whole guard out. However, being sentries, they
took very little notice of what we did, except that the N.C.O. in
charge certainly did pick up one of the dropped cases and hand it to
Chardenal. This was after I had tried to help him and we had dropped
the whole lot.

After this Chardenal gave up all idea of concealment and tried to
express by his carriage that he accepted no responsibility whatever
for the souvenirs. He didn't want the things, not he! They were
_there_, certainly, and--well, yes, he was carrying them, but _why_
he was carrying them (here he would have shrugged his shoulders if
he could) he really couldn't tell you; it was a matter of absolute
indifference to him, anyway. Histrionically I have no doubt it was a
great piece of work, but the only possible inference anybody could
have drawn was that he might have been carrying them to oblige
me--which I resented.

Heavens, how our arms ached, for it was over two miles to the billet!
A collision of milk-trains could hardly have made more noise than we
did as we clashed and clanged down the main street. Of course we met
everybody we knew. People we hadn't seen for years, people we didn'