We have had a bad day to-day—hard fighting, heavy losses, and no progress—people at home seem to think that we are chasing a beaten army which runs so fast that we cannot keep in touch with them. Would that it were true; but we have been badly mauled to-day and there is precious little offensive spirit in our nineteen-year-olds. I saw a boy of the Middlesex coming back with a finger shot away—they had run against a farm-house with three Huns and a machine-gun and had lost four men in taking it. He said that the bloody “die-hards” had lived up to their name again—four casualties! And yet there was a day on Zandvoorde Ridge when twenty-three men, left out of 800, lay behind the piled-up bodies of their dead and held the line against the flower of the Pomeranian Guard—and they didn’t talk of “die hards.” _Oct. 23._ The Brigade was taken out of the line this morning and at noon we had rejoined our transport. We were under orders to move almost at once and dragged ourselves wearily on to the road, the men singing a doleful dirge, “I’m sure we can’t stick it no longer.” For the sake of example I hobbled too, but would have sold my soul to get on Rosie’s back—to kill the temptation I loaded four men’s packs across her. After dark we came across a battery of field guns standing to with their trails half across the road—by skilful driving and occasionally taking a wheel over the trails we got the limbers and the tool-carts past, but it was too much for the last pontoon—her off hind-wheel hit a trail, the wheel horses slipped on the pavé, and the whole contraption slithered sideways into the ditch. I wanted to cry, but fortunately found the necessary relief in telling the gunners what I thought of them. It took us almost an hour to get the wagon clear, and it was midnight before the men were into billets. There was a pile of straw for me in front of a roaring fire in the farm-house kitchen. I collapsed on to this, too exhausted even to loosen my boots or my tunic collar. _Oct. 24._ Let there be no mistake—last night was the happiest night of my life, and getting up at six o’clock this morning was the most wonderful thing that I have ever done. I looked into a mirror and realised with amusement why the old farmer was so terrified when I staggered in last night. The scar under my left eye is still prominent, my clothes were sodden and even my tousled hair was matted with mud; with the exception of my tunic all my uniform is standard Tommy outfit, and I wore a five-days’ growth of beard—surely a more unkempt looking brigand never masqueraded as a British officer. I looked at my great murderous maulers and wondered idly how they had evolved from the sensitive, manicured fingers that used to pen theses on “Colloidal Fuel” and “The Theory of Heat Distribution in Cylinder Walls.” And I found the comparison good.