men are simply pirouetting to England in countless droves. We
know it because we see it in the papers (when they come), and it is a
great source of comfort to us. But since it is six days' train journey
and four days' lorry-hopping from where we sit guarding the wrong side
of the river to the necessary seaport, perhaps they have forgotten us,
or they are keeping all the pivots in this area for one final orgy of
demobilisation at some future date, which for the moment I am not at
liberty to disclose.

At present my poor friend Cook is sitting in the Company Mess with
his thoughts all of the inside of Army prisons, instead of the glowing
pictures he used to have of himself exchanging his battle-bowler for
the headgear of civilisation. He says I'm responsible for his state of
mind, because I first put the idea into his head. Well, I did; but I
don't see how you can blame the fellow who filled the shell if some
silly ass hits it on the nose-cap with a hammer.

It started like this. After the Demobilisation General Post had
sounded Cook spent his time writing to everybody who did not know him
well enough to down his chances, filled up all the forms in triplicate
and packed his valise ready to start off any time of the day or night
for England, home and wholesale hardware, which is his particular
pivot. I may say here that nominally this business is run by him
and his brother, and the fact that they are now both in the Army is
probably the chief reason why the manager in charge is able to make
the business pay. However, you know what people are; if they draw
receipts from a business nothing will persuade them but that they
must be there, "on the spot you know," to "look after it." So, seeing
his face grow longer and longer as the days went by without the
Quarter-Master coming round and handing him his ration trilby hat,
civvy suit and the swagger cane he hopes for, I said, "Why don't you
put in for two months' business leave?"

The air was at once rent with a fearful rush of leaves of his A.B.
153, and he ceased to take any interest in his platoon from that
moment. In vain I urged upon him the consummate folly of neglecting
to inquire more closely into the case of a reprobate in No. 11 Platoon
who had so far forgotten all sense of discipline as to set out his
kit with haversack on the left instead of the right (or _vice-versa_,
I forget which, but the Sergeant-Major spotted it.). He even went
the length of saying he didn'