, the
country is very beautiful, more hilly in this immediate neighbourhood,
with great plains stretching away on all sides. The low hills all have
woods round them, and a windmill or a church on the top. Second, B
Squadron have already arrived, and our old Brigade-Major and lots of
other old friends. It was most joyous meeting them all again. We came
trotting down one road, covered with dust, and they came trotting down
another road even more covered with dust, having trekked all day.

Isn't it funny. One gets so quickly used to things that already we have
ceased to notice the smells, which at first made us wield bottles of
disinfectant wherever we went. But now, when the farms and outhouses and
other places where we live smell, we merely laugh, and "fatigues" are
all at work automatically before nightfall, and by next morning--well,
the smells have not gone, but the general feeling is that a good start
has been made.

The water problem is still unsolved, and we get very thirsty; but thirst
is a small fleabite, after all. "Which would you rather have," I asked a
discontented lance-corporal, "a bit of a thirst or a dentist drilling a
hole down a pet nerve?" And he owned he'd rather have a thirst. You
know, it's most awkward. They come to you when there's any difficulty
and seem to think you can put things right always. For instance, a man
came up the other day: "Please, sir, I've lost my haversack." "When did
you miss it first?" "Between ---- and ----, sir." "Now what do you want
me to do?" "I don't know, sir." "Do you want me to go back to ---- and
search the whole of the twenty odd miles to ---- on the off chance of
finding it?" "No, sir." "Do you want to do so yourself?" "No, sir." "And
even if I ordered you to go, do you think that, with so many troops
about, you would be likely to find it still there?" "No, sir."

The result is, of course, that I have to buy one for the unfortunate lad
in the nearest town. One must eat. And our haversacks are our larders.
Haversacks are supplied by the army, but it takes such a time to get
anything, that, if the matter is urgent, it has to be done without the
army. We (the bloomin' orficers) have a "mess-cart" for all our absurd
wines and tinned peaches and things, but the men often have nothing but
the contents of their haversacks.

_June 25._

[Sidenote: READY FOR THE PUSH]

We are in a funny state of waiting for something to happen. Rumours
flying about all the time. We