under their short skirts and fancy aprons. Such a chatter! Such bursts
of light-hearted laughter! Such whisperings of secrets and intrigues
and scandals in high places! Such careless--hearted courage when
British soldiers were being blown to bits, gassed, blinded, maimed,
and shell-shocked in places that were far--so very far--from G. H. Q.!




XI


There were shrill voices one morning outside the gate of our quarters-
-women's voices, excited, angry, passionate. An orderly came into the
mess--we were at breakfast--and explained the meaning of the clamor,
which by some intuition and a quick ear for French he had gathered
from all this confusion of tongues.

"There's a soldier up the road, drunk or mad. He has been attacking a
girl. The villagers want an officer to arrest him."

The colonel sliced off the top of his egg and then rose. "Tell three
orderlies to follow me."

We went into the roadway, and twenty women crowded round us with a
story of attempted violence against an innocent girl. The man had been
drinking last night at the estaminet up there. Then he had followed
the girl, trying to make love to her. She had barricaded herself in
the room, when he tried to climb through the window.