In some places the men's billets are all barns, granaries, sheds and stables, cow-houses, and the like. Here, they are nearly all rooms in empty houses. As for their condition, that, like our cocoa of a night, and cooking generally, is our own affair. In our Division, discipline is very strict about billets. They are carefully inspected once or twice during each turnout by the Commanding Officer, and every day by the O.C. Company and the Platoon Commanders. We have no brooms, brushes, or dusters, except what we can make. But the billets have to be very carefully cleaned out twice a day, and there must be no dirt or crumbs or dust about when they are inspected. Even the mire of the yards outside has to be scraped and cleared away, and kept clear; and any kind of destruction, like breaking down doors or anything of that sort, is a serious crime, to be dealt with very severely. The men thoroughly understand all this now, and the reason of it; and they are awfully good. They leave every place cleaner and better than they found it. In the same way it has been strictly laid down that in their attitude towards the inhabitants the men must be scrupulous. And, by Jove, they are! Wherever our troops are you will find men in khaki helping the women with their washing, drawing water, feeding stock, bringing in cows, getting in wood, and all such matters; and if our fellows haven't much French, I can assure you they are chattering in some sort of a language most of the time. And if all this is incomprehensible to the good Frenchwomen, how is it that the latter respond with so lively a chatter, and why are they always smiling and laughing the while--even when one sees that in their eyes which tells more plainly than the mourning they wear of sacrifices they have made in the service of France? Come to think of it, do you know, that sums up the attitude of all the French women I have met, and of the old men of France, too; and it's an attitude which compels respect, while it elicits sympathy. They smile with their lips, and in the brave hearts of them they smile, too; even though they cannot altogether hide either the wearing anxiety of waiting, or, where bereavement has come, the grief of mourning for brave men lost, which shows in their eyes. In the first convenient archway handy to our billets you will find the Company's field cooker. You have seen them trailing across the Plain down Salisbury way on field days--the same old cookers. The rations come there each day, from the Battalion Q.M. store, three miles away; and there the men draw them in their cooked form at meal-times. In every village there is a canteen where men buy stuff like chocolate, condensed milk, tinned café-au-lait, biscuits, cake, and so forth.