and, travelling with a
certain politician. "It's all right, old boy," bubbled Ronny. "The War
Office is quite calm about it now; we've got 'em stone-cold. Foch is in
supreme command, and there are any number of Divisions in reserve which
haven't been called on. We're only waiting to know if this is the real
push, or only a feint, and then we strike. We've got 'em trapped, old
top, no doubt about that."

"Right-o, strategist!" I retorted in the same vein.

"Do you want to buy a calf, old boy?" he switched off. "Look
here--there's one under the table. About 110 lbs. of meat at 3 francs a
pound. Dirt cheap these times. A Frenchman has left it with Madame to
sell. We'd buy it for our mess, but we've got a goose for dinner
to-night. Stay and dine with us, old boy."

Through the glass door that showed into the cafe one saw a little group
of civilians, dressed in their Sunday black, waiting for carts to take
them from the town. A mother was suckling a wailing child. An old
cripple nodded his head helplessly over hands propped up by his stick.
A smart young French soldier came in at the door, and Madame's
fair-haired daughter rushed to his arms and held him while she wept.
They talked fast, and the civilians listened with strained faces. "Her
fiance," quietly explained an interpreter who came through the cafe to
join us in the "Officers only" room. "He's just come from Montdidier
with a motor-transport. He says he was fired at by machine-guns, which
shows that the Boche is still coming on."

The camp commandant of the Division, nervously business-like, the
baths' officer, D.A.D.O.S., and a couple of padres came in. The Camp
Commandant refused to hear of the colonel sleeping in a tent. "We've
got a big dormitory at the back here, sir--thirty wire-beds. We can put
all your Brigade Headquarter officers up." The colonel protested that
we should be quite happy in bivouacs, but he was overruled.

We dined in a tent in the waggon lines. As I made my way there I
noticed a blue-painted motor-van, a mobile French wireless station,
some distance away in the fields. What really caught my eye when I drew
near it was a couple of Camembert cheeses, unopened and unguarded, on
the driver's seat. I bethought myself that the operator inside the van
might be persuaded to sell one of the cheeses. He wasn't, but he was
extremely agreeable, and showed me the evening _communique_ that had
just been "ticked" through. We became friends, which expla