The motor-lorry is the vehicle _par excellence_. The wonder is how it is supplied and maintained at this rate. In most villages is a tyre-press where its wheels are re-rubbered as often as need be--and begad! that's often enough to keep a large and noble army of mechanics hard-worked. Any day you can see the old tyre being prised off and the new, smooth, full, blue one pushed on. The old is like nothing so much as a rim of Gruyère cheese, with the perforations clean through to the rim, everywhere. The question that always occurs is: Did the lorry run to the last on a tyre like that? The answer is: Yes--had to. The motor-lorry it is, then, that monopolises the road. There is a stream of them passing either way which is not quite constant, but is nearly so. Lorries are almost as thick as the trees that line every road in France. Between these honking, rumbling streams, and in the gaps of them, other traffic goes as it can--that is, Colonel's cars, motor-cycles (there are almost as many cycles as lorries; but they can pant an intermittent course through any maze), motor-ambulances, tractors. There are French Colonels, English Colonels, mere Majors, and even Generals, threading impatiently through the maze. It is obviously aggravating to them, this snail's pace. A Colonel likes to tear along, because he is a Colonel. One is speaking now of a main road between railheads. Put them on a side-road, where there is nothing in sight but a few ambulances, a lorry or two, and some cows and women, and they move at a pace that inspires an adequate respect in all who have to stand aside for their necks' sake. But in this horde of beastly lorries what can a Colonel do, more than glare and gnaw a rain-dewed moustache? There are supply lorries, ammunition lorries, Flying Corps lorries, road-repairing lorries, lorries bearing working-parties, freights of German prisoners, lorries returning empty. Beside, there are always a few 'buses moving troops, and sometimes, participating in the general _mêlée_, is a troop of cavalry or a half-mile of artillery limbers or a divisional train of horse transport--or all three--making an adequate contribution to the creaking, rattling, lumbering, panting, honking, shouting, cursing, squelching, bobbing, swaying, dodging throng. A military highroad in France behind the line, any time in the day or night, baffles description--especially if it's raining. Conceive (if you can) what this becomes at ten o'clock at night in an advanced section of the road where lights would be suicidal. But I doubt if you can--no, not unless you've been in the whirl of it.