it? Suppose we get Fritz on the
hop, as they have near Peronne. Where are the most covered approaches to
the slopes of that hill? Shall we carry the thing off as splendidly as
those squadrons did before Peronne, or shall we bungle the show? You'll
see.

We get so few papers here, and only two days old at that, but no one
seems much the worse for it.

[Sidenote: NEUVE EGLISE]

Only one solitary man with lice so far. The man has been sent away, and
is, I hear, to be given sulphur baths and scrubbed with a scrubbing
brush.

Oh, I was going to say just now--_re_ reconnoitring--that we were doing
all the ground about a village where there is a church even more smashed
than the St. John place. It is on a hill, and all the village is Sahara.
The church remains with the remnants of four outside walls and the
tower. Fritz does not destroy the tower, as it is a good spot for him to
range on to. And outside the tower, right up at the top, is the bronze
minute-hand of the old clock. The rest of the clock-face has been blown
into the middle of the church, and lies there nearly complete amidst a
crumbled heap of pillars and mortar and chair-legs and pulpit fragments.
One notice on a house amused me so, and the troop too. It says, "Do not
_touch_ this house." The reason being rather obvious. For if you did
touch the house, it would certainly fall on to your head. The next shell
will bring it down, even if it's a couple of hundred yards away, merely
by the vibration. We find shell holes so useful for watering the horses.
They seem to retain water in a most curious way.

_July 19._

On the move again. A four days' trek. Not more than twenty miles a day,
in order to keep the horses "in the pink." They are certainly very fit
now, and a gentle twenty miles a day just keeps them nicely exercised.
But twenty miles _at a walk_ is not overexciting. Still, it is
interesting to be covering the ground. We already know quite a lot of
the back of the front. Last night we arrived in a cool lull after
showers. From quiet and uneventful stretches of hedgeless corn-fields,
intersected by long straight roads, lined sometimes with poplars, but
more often with lopped wych-elms or willows, we descended rather
suddenly into a little wooded valley where a village sits by the trouty
stream. After watering the horses at the stream, we filed by squadrons
into various fields and picketed down for the night. Some of us in a
small but clean estaminet, ot