at a goat, bless him, and I think
that may just turn the scale. I shall now proceed to train Swallow to
shy at every blade of grass, every grain of sand. Long live that goat!
We are still "standing by." It is a wearing existence. I bathed
yesterday in a well-known river. So beautiful and willowy.

_July 28._

[Sidenote: A BATH]

Temperature 100,000 deg.! And I am lying on a bed in a wee cottage, very,
very dusty and dirty. Hale, however, is going to bring some water from
the pump, and, oh Jerusalem, won't it be heavenly--a bath! All these
things off, and lovely clean things on, and lovely coffee to drink when
that's done. I wouldn't change the prospects of the next half-hour for
all the pearls and peacocks of Araby--no, not if you offered me the
Peace of Europe! Europe be blowed! I want my bath.

You see, it's like this: The corps H.Q. moved to a different area some
days ago, preceded by us. Everything in the area left in an utterly
unorganized, uncatalogued condition. We have to tear round and find out
where the various divisions can go.

And we have _got_ to find room for more divisions than have ever
occupied this area before. Useless to come back and report that such and
such villages have no water for men or horses. The water has got to be
found. Dig for it. Organize fatigue-parties and dig. Dam up little
trickles by the roadside until quite large ponds are formed. Get the
engineers and pioneers on to it. Labour battalions--anything. So I've
been riding madly about, and I'm like a treacle pudding in a
sand-storm.

The bath! Hale, you are a most excellent fellow. That'll do splendidly.
Have you got my towel?... INTERVAL.... And now, dear friends,
it is another man that you see before you. A man who has had a bath. A
man less like a bit of oily motor-waste, and more like Sir George
Alexander. This delicious coffee, too! A bowl of it, made by Mme.
Whatever-her-name-is. I take it up in both hands and quaff it. Here's to
You and to Home, and to Everybody--and (just to show there's no ill
feeling) here's to the poor old Boche!

_July 29._

In the same cottage.

It's very hot. Ammunition lorries go by in an endless string, making the
deuce of a dust. But we are far away from guns and gun food and noise. I
got leave to go up to ---- yesterday.

I do dislike noise so, don't you? The noise of a battery in action is
diabolical, and the very thought of it makes me shiver. There go the
senseless lorries, all