At any junction along a military road you are impressed by the usefulness of the military police. They stand there directing the traffic by pantomime, just as in London. Their word is law from which there is no appeal. If a driver grows argumentative it is always the worse for him. District A.P.M.'s will allow no dispute of the directions of their minions. You must wait for their instructions and obey them very exactly. If they tell you to wait you dare not budge; if you do, there's your number glaring on your bonnet, and your goose is cooked. The military police are all-powerful on the road, and proportionately autocratic. A sergeant will step into a stretch of clear rural road and address the driver: "What limit is on your speed?"--"Six miles."--"My instructions to you are to go much slower."--"Why" (irritably), "what am I going now?"--"Never mind that" (with a conclusive gesture); "I've timed you from the last post, and you're too fast. I'm not making a case of it, but you go slower. Hear?" And this monument of British administrative exactitude walks off, after saluting perfunctorily (he gives you no loophole), and throws you permission to go on and behave. You proceed, with the guns belching over the ridge, the observation balloons overhanging the slope silently spotting and sending down cool and deadly mathematical messages. The 'planes drone above; the multitudinous machinery of war creaks and rumbles down the road; the landscape lies around you incongruously quiet and lovely. CHAPTER II BEHIND THE LINES--II