I suppose I have been rather tiresome lately, but all except T. D. and possibly E. N. are so distressingly the athletic type, who sink their whole beings in the school and its affairs, and are blind and almost ignorant of any world outside their own. 31 July. The last flourish before Camp. My room is a sight for the gods, piles and stacks of clothing to be packed, a bulging pot-bellied kit-bag filled with changes of clothing for the ten days’ horror, everything upside down, and over all the frenzied maid as near suicide as she ever gets: her chief job is to look for lost garments, and as she regards me with the deepest suspicion over a pair of tennis shoes, I am not left long alone. The storm in the Chinese tea-service has died down, and once more I am anchored precariously outside the haven of the barely tolerated. I hear that the only hotel where one can get a bath in Camp has been put out of bounds, which is delightful. How furious Mamma will be: apparently the reason is that people used to drink there. In Camp: 2 August. Just a scrawl. It has been raining viciously as if with a purpose. At the moment I am lying on what is affectionately known as a “palliarse.” Underneath is deal planking. Underneath that is a torrent as we are on a hill and the accumulated effects of two days’ rain are flowing beneath. Above is a bell tent, long since condemned by the army authorities as unsound, so that the cloudburst which is pouring from Heaven penetrates freely. There is one spot under which lies Brown, the world’s greatest grouser, and it is appropriately threadbare. He was foolish enough to put soap on it; we had told him that if you soaped a bit of cloth it became waterproof, and now soapsuds drip down on to his face. We have also told him that his grousing is intolerable, and will be dealt with unless he suppresses it, so that he lies in a misery too deep for words, and is the only thing that keeps us happy. There are, of course, rumours about our going home on account of the wet, but such a good thing could not possibly happen. The food and the smell of grease in the eating tent are both very foul. The smell I was warned against by an old campaigner. Thank God my turn has not yet come for washing up, but I shall have to do it to-morrow. They are thinking themselves the most awful devils in the next tent with a bottle of port; perhaps if I had one I should feel one too. Holidays: 11 August.