as the poor devil don't find it so warm where
'e's gone as what it is 'ere. I quite liked un, though 'e were a bit
free with 'is fists, and always dreamin' like," which was probably the
only appreciation ever uttered in memory of John Williams, tramp and
soldier.

XXVI

THE CLEARING HOUSE

You collect your belongings, you stretch and yawn, you rub your eyes to
rid them of sleep--and incidentally you leave great black marks all down
your face--you struggle to get on your equipment in a filthy
second-class carriage where are three other officers struggling to get
on their equipment, and waving their arms about like the sails of
windmills. Then you obtain a half share of the window and gaze out as
the train crawls round the outskirts of the town, that lies still and
quiet in the dusk of the morning. You have arrived at your
destination--you are at the base.

This quaint old town, with its streets running up the hill from the
river, with its beautiful spires and queer old houses, is the great
clearing house of the British Army. Here the new troops arrive; here
they leave for the front; here, muddy and wounded, they are driven in
motor chars-a-bancs and ambulances from the station to the hospitals;
here they are driven down to the river-side and carried on to the
hospital ships that are bound for England.

And this gigantic clearing house buzzes with soldiers in khaki. There
are the hotels where the generals and staff officers take their tea;
there are the cafes haunted by subalterns; there are little "Debits de
Vins" where "Tommies" go and explain, in "pidgin" English, that they are
dying for glasses of beer. In all the streets, great motor lorries
lumber by, laden with blackened soldiers who have been down on the quay,
unloading shells, food, hay, oil, anything and everything that can be
needed for the British Expeditionary Force. And, in the two main
thoroughfares of an afternoon, there flows an unceasing crowd--generals
and privates, French men and women, officers hunting through the shops
for comforts to take up the line, people winding their busy way through
the throng, and people strolling along with the tide, intent on
snatching all they can of pleasure and amusement while they have the
opportunity.

And a few years ago these same streets would lie sleepily in the sun,
dreaming of the days of splendour long by. In the square before the
wonderful cathedral there would be stillness--here and there, perh