ht hours to go still, there's time to
write a letter. The last three days' postcards have been scrappy and
unintelligible, but we departed without warning and with the most
Sherlock Holmes secrecy. Not a word about which ports we were sailing
from or to.

However, I'll tell you what I can without disclosing any names of
places.

After moving off at midnight from among the Hampshire pine-trees, we
eventually reached our port of departure. Great fun detraining the
horses and getting them on board. The men were in the highest spirits.
But how disgusting those cold rank smells of a dock are.

We sailed the following evening. Hideously rough, and it took seventeen
and a half hours. The men very quiet indeed and packed like sardines.
It was wonderful to think of all those eager souls in all those ships
making for France together over the black deep water. Some had gone
before, and some came after. But the majority went over that night. I
felt decidedly ill. And it was nervous work going round seeing after the
horses and men when a "crisis" might have occurred at any moment!
Luckily, however, dignity was preserved. Land at last "hove in sight" as
the grey morning grew paler and clearer. What busy-looking quays! More
clatter of disembarkation. No time to think or look about.

Then, all being ready, we mounted and trekked off to a so-called "rest
camp" near the town, most uneasy and hectic. But food late that evening
restored our hilarity. A few hours' sleep and we moved off once more
into the night, the horses' feet sounding loud and harsh on the unending
French cobbles. By 8 a.m. we were all packed into this train. Now we are
passing by lovely, almost English, wooded hills. Here a well-known town
with its cathedral looks most enticing. I long to explore. Such singing
from the men's carriages! Being farmers mostly, they are interested in
the unhedged fields and the acres of cloches. They go into hysterics of
laughter when the French people assail them with smiles, broken
English-French, and long loaves of bread. They think the long loaves
_very_ humorous! There are Y.M.C.A. canteens at most stations, so we are
well fed. The horses are miserable, of course. They were unhappy on
board ship. A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to. And
now they are wretched in their trucks, Rinaldo and Swallow are, of
course, terrified, while Jezebel, having rapidly thought out the
situation, takes it all very quietly. She has jus