breakfast said he had had enough. The Staff was almost giggling, and a
battalion (the Cheshires, I think) that we saw pass, was absolutely
shouting with joy. You would have thought we had just gained a famous
victory.

Half of us went forward with the column. The rest remained for a
slaughterous hour. First we went to the hen-house, and in ten minutes
had placed ten dripping victims in the French gendarme captain's car.
Then George and I went in pursuit of a turkey for the Skipper. It was an
elusive bird with a perfectly Poultonian swerve, but with a bagful of
curses, a bleeding hand, and a large stick, I did it to death.

We set out merrily and picked up Spuggy, Cecil, and George in the big
forest that stretches practically from the Marne to Tournan. They
thought they had heard a Uhlan, but nothing came of it (he turned out to
be a deer), so we went on to Villeneuve. There I bought some biscuits
and George scrounged some butter. A job to the 3rd Division on our right
and another in pursuit of an errant officer, and then a sweaty and
exiguous lunch--it was a sweltering noon--seated on a blistering
pavement. Soon after lunch three of us were sent on to Mortcerf, a
village on a hill to the north of the forest. We were the first English
there--the Germans had left it in the morning--and the whole population,
including one strikingly pretty flapper, turned out to welcome us in
their best clean clothes,--it may have been Sunday.

We accepted any quantity of gorgeous, luscious fruit, retiring modestly
to a shady log to eat it, and smoke a delectable pipe. In a quarter of
an hour Major Hildebrand of the 2nd Corps turned up in his car, and
later the company.