t eaten an enormous
lunch. Poor Rinaldo wouldn't touch his, and Swallow only ate a very
little.

[Sidenote: FRANCE AT LAST]

In this carriage Jorrocks is snoring like thunder. Edward is eating
chocolate. Sir John is trying to plough through one of "these Frenchy
newspapers--damned nonsense, you know! they don't know what it all means
themselves." And Julian is scrutinizing a map of our area.

Everyone is so glad to be going up right into it now. That pottering
about at home was most irritating. Just spit and polish, spit and polish
all the time since August, 1914.

We are all getting cramp, and have to stand up occasionally. Toby has
smoked his fourteenth pipe.

Oh, look! What a lovely rainbow! Treble. And under it a village with an
estaminet, a dozen slate-roofed houses, and a very new chateau, hideous
with scarlet bricks and chocolate draw-bridge and pepper-pot turrets.
Poplars and more poplars. Still we rumble along through symmetrical
France.

_June 7._

We are in one of the most lovely old French chateaux I have ever
imagined. Half chateau, half farm, fifteen miles behind the line. We
remain here for two or three days. Arrived late last night, tired and
grubby. But, O ye gods, when dawn began to reveal this old courtyard
with its hens and chickens and pigeons! On one side the old house with
its faded shutters. On the other side the old gateway with a square
tower and a pigeon-cote above. Along the other sides old barns. The
country round we have hardly seen, but it looks exquisite. There are
several most attractive foals in a field close by.

And inside the chateau funny old-fashioned things--old beds with frowsty
canopies, and old wall-papers with large designs in ferns and
cornucopias. Imitation marble in the hall. Gilded tassels. Alas! my kit
has not yet arrived. It's awful. And the anxiety to draw these things is
feverish. We go so soon.

When you look out of the rooms into the courtyard, you see our waggons
and draft-horses, and the men eating bully-beef like wolves. Some of
them (including Sergeant Cart) are shaving and washing stripped to the
waist. The others just tear at the bread and beef and munch without
speaking. Corporal Nutley and Corporal Field are pointing with their
tea-mugs to the old gateway and the ducks and things. They all evidently
love it. They sleep in the barns amongst the hay. The sun is warm and
sleepy.

_June 8._

[Sidenote: THE CHATEAU-FARM]

Still at this lovely