You would have thought we should have had time during the past six months or so to have put together most of the little things a campaigner wants, wouldn't you? especially seeing that a man has to carry all his belongings about with him and yet I would make a sporting bet that there are not half a dozen men in the Battalion who have bought nothing to carry with them to-day. There is a Y. M. C. A. hut and a good canteen in this camp, and there has been a great business done in electric torches, tooth-powder, chocolate, knives, pipe-lighters, and all manner of notions. We are all very glad to be here, very glad; and nine out of ten will dream to-night of trenches in France and the Push we all mean to win V.C.'s in. But that's not to say we shall forget England and the--the little things we care about at home. Now I'm going to turn in for my first sleep in France. So give what you have to spare of my love to all whom it may concern, and accept the rest yourself from your "_Temporary Gentleman_." THE FIRST MARCH We reached this long, straggling village in pale starlight a little after six this morning; and with it the welcome end of the first stage of our journey from the port of disembarking to our section of the French Front. In all the months of our training in England I never remember to have seen "A" Company anything like so tired; and we had some pretty gruelling times, too, during those four-day divisional stunts and in the chalk trenches on the Plain; and again in the night ops. on the heather of those North Yorkshire moors. But "A" Company was never so tired as when we found our billets here this morning. Yet we were in better form than any other company in the Battalion; and I'm quite sure no other Battalion in the Brigade could march against our fellows. The whole thing is a question of what one has to carry. Just now, of course, we are carrying every blessed thing we possess, including great-coats and blankets, not to mention stocks of 'baccy, torches, maps, stationery, biscuits, and goodness knows what besides; far fuller kits, no doubt, than tried campaigners ever have. (I found little M----, of No. 3 Platoon, surreptitiously stuffing through a hedge a case of patent medicines, including cough-mixture and Mother Somebody's Syrup!) If you ever visit France you probably won't travel on your own ten toes; but if you should, be advised by me and cut your kit down to the barest minimum; and when you've done that, throw away a good half of what's left.