lorries dead slow," you see in immense characters in the midst of
the foreign scene. And at all the awkward street corners in the
towns a soldier directs the traffic. Not merely in the towns, but in
many and many a rural road you come across a rival of the Strand.
For the traffic is tremendous, and it is almost all mechanical
transport. You cannot go far without encountering, not one or two,
but dozens and scores of motor-lorries, which, after the leviathan
manner of motor-lorries, occupy as much of the road as they can.
When a string of these gets mixed up with motor-cars, a few
despatch-riders on motor-cycles, a peasant's cart, and a company
on the march, the result easily surpasses Piccadilly Circus just
before the curtains are rising in West End theatres. Blocks may and
do occur at any moment. Out of a peaceful rustic solitude you may
run round a curve straight into a block. The motor-lorries constitute
the difficulty, not always because they are a size too large for the
country, but sometimes because of the human nature of Tommies.
The rule is that on each motor-lorry two Tommies shall ride in front
and one behind. The solitary one behind is cut off from mankind,
and accordingly his gregarious instinct not infrequently makes him
nip on to the front seat in search of companionship. When he is
established there impatient traffic in the rear may screech and roar
in vain for a pathway; nothing is so deaf as a motor-lorry. The
situation has no disadvantage for the trio in front of the motor-lorry
until a Staff officer's car happens to be inconvenienced. Then, when
the Staff officer does get level, there is a short, sharp scene, a dead
silence, and the offender creeps back, a stricken sinner, to his
proper post.

The encumbered and busy roads, and the towns crammed with
vehicles and vibrating with military activity, produce upon you such