f No. 007 Field
Company, R.E., known to its victims as "Chaucer's Gang," the most
conscienceless crew of body-snatchers and common thieves in all the
B.E.F.

I am myself no fastidious precisian, being in a Labour Company, but
there are limits--or should be. My own particular grouch against them
started at Ripilly-sur-Somme. They, being skilled Royal Engineers,
were clearing undergrowth and putting up huts in Ripilly woods for a
division due to arrive, and my scorned rabble were unloading the huts
in sections from barges at Ripilly canal wharf and loading them on to
lorries for transport to the woods. Chaucer and his Royal Engineers
were living on the spot--Ardennes waving o'er them her green leaves
and so forth--and we were in rest billets (loud roars of raucous
laughter) in Ripilly village, the least sanitary spot in the whole war
zone.

Chaucer wouldn't let us stay with him in the huts--said the Chief
Engineer was very keen on men living next their work. But between
Ripilly and the canal wharf was an ideal spot. The chalk downs sloped
steeply to the river, and halfway down was a bit of a level plateau
just the size for a couple of huts. South aspect; good fishing and
bathing; a home from home. The woods hid it from view above and the
roadside poplars from below. It was a truly desirable building site.

We had a hurdle-maker in our company, so I gave him a brace of
light-duty men as apprentices and they built a little hut of wattle
and daub. It had a nice rural appearance and was warm, but it leaked
in wet weather, and the more I thought of Chaucer lying dry under his
felt roofs the worse I felt about it. So I had a chat with my sergeant
at the wharf, and the long and short of it was that two walls and one
roof got delivered by mistake at the desirable building-site.

We worked late that night, and next day had thirty men in residence,
with one end of the long hut partitioned off for Simmonds, my
subaltern, and myself.

So far so good. I began to think about making another mistake and
getting a second hut, but that evening Chaucer came sliding down over
the steep turf, visibly annoyed.

"Where did you get this hut?"

"Found it."

"On Ripilly wharf?"

"Certainly not. I found it down there by the road and had it brought
up here for safety. If a lorry had run over it in the dark--"

"Ah, cut it out," he said. "The hut is mine. I found two odd sections
in the last barge-load. Any poacher who knew his job woul