I messed with a C.C.S. Most messes of medical officers are interesting and varied. The Colonel was a Regular--an accessible and companionable Regular. An Irishman he was, kind of heart and quick of temper; and so able that it was never dangerous for him to allow his Captains to argue with him on questions of administration, because he could always rout them: he was always right. A less able man would have taken risks in permitting argument on the subject of his administration. He was the fiercest smoker and the ablest bridge-player I have ever known. He used to complain bitterly of the standard of bridge played by the mess in general. He put out his pipe chiefly to eat--to eat rather than to sleep. He was a hearty, but not a voluptuous, eater. His appetite was the consequence of genuine cerebration and of hard walking. He walked, unless hindered by the most inevitable obstacles, five miles a day--hard, with his two dogs and the Major. He was very deaf, and very fond of his dogs. They slept in his room, usually (one or other) on his bed. He slept little. He read and smoked in bed regularly until about two; was wakened at six; took a pipe (or two) with his tea before getting up; and sometimes--though rarely--resumed his reading in bed until eight, or spent a happy hour in earnest conversation with the dogs before rising. His officers liked him; the Sisters loved him. To them he was indulgent. The day before the push began a Sister approached him in his office. She said that although it was her afternoon off, the Matron had advised her against tramping, lest a convoy of wounded should come in suddenly. He said: "My dear, you go."--"And how long may I be away?"--"Well, you don't go on duty until eight in the morning; as long as you're back by then, it's good enough. But mind--don't come reeling in at 8.30 with your hair down your back! That's all I ask." She left, adoring. The Major was a mid-Victorian gentleman, with the gentlest manners and language, except when it came to talk of Germans. He got an acute attack of _Wanderlust_ soon after I came--felt the call of Arras--and got command of a field ambulance up in the thick of it. The last I heard of him was that he was hurrying about the city under a steel helmet, succouring with his own hand those stricken down in the streets.