he flies are tiresome.

This place has a beautiful church, which I have drawn. It's quite an
unusually charming bit of the country.

_August 11._

[Sidenote: DOMART]

Jezebel did such an astonishing thing yesterday. I was out with the
signallers practising. We didn't want the bother of holding or picketing
the horses. So I ordered "off-saddle," and then put a guard over the
disused quarry where I had decided to leave them. The quarry had a
grassy floor, and walls of chalk that in one place were only about 7
foot high. Jezebel has been so good (for her) lately, that I determined
to leave her with the other horses. They were stripped of all bridles
and saddles and things, and had heaps of room to wander.

Meanwhile we were carrying on with our work.

Presently shouts from the guard. I went back to see what was the matter.
My dear, Jezebel had tried to jump out of the quarry!

She had tried twice, but the sides were too steep and high, and she had
slipped back. When I arrived, she was quietly grazing as if nothing had
happened. Ah, but wait. This is not all.

Later on in the morning another hooroosh. A loud squealing and sounds of
kicking. One of her moods again, I thought to myself grimly. That
well-known voice. I should recognize her squeal anywhere. As I was going
towards the quarry with Corporal Dutton to get her tied up or else
hobbled, lo and behold! the two guards had vanished. "What the
devil...." And all of a sudden out pour the horses careering downhill
like mad! It was so appalling that Corporal Dutton and I just stood and
shouted with laughter.

My dear, if there is anything in the whole world that goads a Major, a
Brigadier, or any other military man, to fury and madness, it is a loose
horse.

Imagine, then, forty-four horses all riderless, without saddles or
bridles (and therefore almost impossible to catch), stampeding straight
into a corps H.Q. village. This village is crawling with Generals!

Well, in the end we caught them all, and by some dazzling piece of luck,
for which Allah be praised, no General, no Colonel, nor anyone else,
seems to have got wind of the incident. Subalterns, yes, and I am
sumptuously ragged about it. But how all the Generals and things
happened to be out of sight and hearing at the time, I don't know. And
_still_ this is not the cream of the comedy.

After giving orders for rounding up the animals, I went on to the quarry
with Corporal Dutton. My dear, _There was J