it ever since. What with one thing and another, it is in an advanced
state of dilapidation; in fact, if it were not that one has the map's
word for it, and a notice perched on a heap of brick-dust saying that
the Town Major may be found within, the casual wayfarer might imagine
himself in the Sahara, Kalahari, or the south end of Kingsway.

Some of these French towns are very difficult to recognise as such;
only the trained detective can do it. A certain Irish Regiment was
presented with the job of capturing one. The scheme was roughly this.
They were to climb the parapet at 5.25 A.M. and rush a quarry some one
hundred yards distant. After half-an-hour's breather they were to go
on to some machine-gun emplacements, dispose of these, wait a further
twenty minutes, and then take the town. Distance barely one thousand
yards in all. Promptly at zero the whole field spilled over the bags,
as the field spills over the big double at Punchestown, paused at the
quarry only long enough to change feet on the top, and charged yelling
at the machine guns. Then being still full of fun and _joie de vivre_,
and having no officers left to hamper their fine flowing style, they
ducked through their own barrage and raced all out for the final
objective. Twenty minutes later, two miles further on, one perspiring
private turned to his panting chum, "For the love of God, Mike, aren't
we getting in the near of this damn town yet?"

I have a vast respect for HINDENBURG (a man who can drink the mixtures
he does, and still sit up and smile sunnily into the jaws of a
camera ten times a day, is worthy of anybody's veneration) but if he
thought that by blowing these poor little French villages into small
smithereens he would deprive the B.E.F. of headcover and cause it to
catch cold and trot home to mother, he will have to sit up late and
do some more thinking. For Atkins of to-day is a knowing bird; he