ed. That was what M. wanted to do. I suffered from an
attack of conscience, and insisted that we ought to report ourselves
to the Deputy-Chaplain-General.

"Our orders," I reminded M., "are to report on arrival."

We set out to look for the Deputy-Chaplain-General, M. averring that
he had a special talent for finding his way in strange towns at
night. Owing to what are officially known as the "unhappy divisions"
of the Christian Church, there are two chief chaplains in France. One
controls the clergy of the Church of England. The other drives a
mixed team of Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, and others
who owe spiritual allegiance to what is called "The United Board." At
that time both these gentlemen had offices in the same town.

In spite of M.'s instinct for locality we came on the wrong one
first. Our chief was located in the most obscure corner. We found him
at last, or rather we found his office. The good man himself was
probably in bed. An orderly invited us to write our names in block
capitals, insisting severely on the block capitals, in a large book.
Then--he must have recognised that we were new boys and gullible--he
said that we ought to report ourselves to some one else called the
billeting officer.

The fact that we were already provided with beds made no difference.
To the billeting officer we ought to go. It is greatly to our credit
that we did. I followed M. through the streets of that town, very
narrow streets, very twisty and very badly lighted. I felt as
Carruthers did when Davis piloted him across the sand-banks through
the fog to Memert. It was 11 o'clock when we found the billeting
officer. He was playing bridge and did not in the least want to see
us, appeared indeed to think that our visit was unnecessary and
troublesome. We left him hurriedly.

Our hotel seemed a home when we got back to it. A friendly subaltern
helped us out of a difficulty and increased our knowledge of the
French language by telling us that:

"In this country when you want soda water you say 'Oh, gas us.'"

We said it to the damsel behind the bar, and I have seldom been more
surprised than I was when she produced a siphon. After that we went
to bed.

CHAPTER III

A JOURNEY IN THE WAR ZONE

Next morning we went to see the Deputy-Chaplain-General. It is not
right or possible, either in the army or anywhere else, to plunge
straight into very august presences. We introduced ourselves first to
a st