h the quays from those of a British port.

The blue-bloused porters who formerly met one with volubility and the
expectation of a fabulous tip have given place to khakied orderlies, the
polite customs officials to old-soldier myrmidons of the worried
embarkation officer. Store dumps with English markings are packed
symmetrically on the cobbled stones. The transport lorries are all
British, some of them still branded with the names of well-known London
firms. Newly-built supply depots, canteens, and military institutes
fringe the town proper or rise behind the sand-ridges. One-time hotels
and casinos along the sea-front between Boulogne and Wimereux have
become hospitals, to which, by day and by night, the smooth-running
motor ambulances bring broken soldiers. Other of the larger hotels, like
the Folkestone and the Meurice, are now patronised almost exclusively by
British officers.

The military note dominates everything. A walk through the main streets
leaves an impression of mixed uniforms--bedraggled uniforms from trench
and dug-out, neat rainbow-tabbed uniforms worn by officers attached to
the Base, graceful nursing uniforms, haphazard convalescent uniforms,
discoloured blue uniforms of French permissionaires. Everybody is
bilingual, speaking, if not both English and French, either one or other
of these languages and the formless Angliche patois invented by Tommy
and his hosts of the occupied zone. And everybody, soldier and civilian,
treats as a matter of course the strange metamorphosis of what was
formerly a haven for the gentle tourist.

The boat, due to steam off at eleven, left at noon,--a creditable
performance as leave-boats go. On this occasion there was good reason
for the delay, as we ceded the right of way to a hospital ship and
waited while a procession of ambulance cars drove along the quay and
unloaded their stretcher cases. The Red Cross vessel churned slowly out
of the harbour, and we followed at a respectful distance.

Passengers on a Channel leave-boat are quieter than might be expected.
With the country of war behind them they have attained the third degree
of content, and so novel is this state after months of living on edge
that the short crossing does not allow sufficient time for them to be
moved to exuberance. One promenades the crowded deck happily, taking
care not to tread on the staff spurs, and talks of fighting as if it
were a thing of the half-forgotten past.

But there is no demon