The second kind of work consists in riding along a road already known. A
clever despatch rider may reduce this to a fine art. He knows exactly at
which corner he is likely to be sniped, and hurries accordingly. He
remembers to a yard where the sentries are. If the road is under shell
fire, he recalls where the shells usually fall, the interval between the
shells and the times of shelling. For there is order in everything, and
particularly in German gunnery. Lastly, he does not race along with nose
on handle-bar. That is a trick practised only by despatch riders who are
rarely under fire, who have come to a strange and alarming country from
Corps or Army Headquarters. The experienced motor-cyclist sits up and
takes notice the whole time. He is able at the end of his ride to give
an account of all that he has seen on the way.

D.H.Q. were at Serches, a wee village in a hollow at the head of a
valley. So steeply did the hill rise out of the hollow to the north that
the village was certainly in dead ground. A fine road went to the west
along the valley for three miles or so to the Soissons-Rheims road. For
Venizel you crossed the main road and ran down a little hill through a
thick wood, terribly dark of nights, to the village; you crossed the
bridge and opened the throttle.

The first time I rode north from Venizel, Moulders was with me. On the
left a few hundred yards away an ammunition section that had crossed by
the pontoon was at full gallop. I was riding fast--the road was
loathsomely open--but not too fast, because it was greasy. A shell
pitched a couple of hundred yards off the road, and then others, far
enough away to comfort me.

A mile on the road bends sharp left and right over the railway and past