_Friday --th._--I was wakened at two o'clock this morning by the hum of their collective conversation. Sergeants-major were roaring commands in the moonlight; some of them were supplemented by remarks not polite. Many English sergeants-major speak in dialect: most of them do. There is something repellent about words of command issued in dialect. Why can't England cut-out dialect? It's time it went. Dialect is a very rank form of Conservatism. Why can't a uniform pronunciation of vowels be taught in English schools? Active-service over a term of years will perhaps help to bring about a standardising of English speech. One hopes so.... I got up and looked out. As far as could be seen along any street, and all over the square, was a faintly mobile sea of black on which danced the glow of the cigarette (damnable, how the cigarette has put out the pipe!). Detachments were still marching from the train to the halting-places, and detachments were moving out momentarily on the night march. "Hark, I hear the tramp of thousands, And of arméd men the hum." They moved off--some to drum and fife band; some to the regimental song; some to the regimental whistle; some to the unrhythmic accompaniment of random conversation. The general impression they gave, at two in the morning, was of an abnormal cheerfulness. A French ambulance-train came in this afternoon crowded with slightly wounded--sitting cases. They were immensely cheerful, though there was not by any means sitting accommodation for all. These were all nice light "Blighty" wounds; they meant respite from the dam'd trenches without dishonour. The fellows were immensely cheered by this. They were more like a train-load of excursionists than a body of wounded warriors from a hell like the Somme. They had hundredweights of German souvenirs. Most of it was being worn--helmets, tunics, arms, and the like. I bought several pieces. They were not expensive. A French Poilu's pay is _cinq sous_ (twopence ha'penny) per day: fifteen or twenty francs means about three months' pay for him. He'll part with a lot of souvenir for that. And he has such a bulk of it that a few casques, trench daggers, rifles, and telescopic sights, more or less, are neither here nor there. The English girls who administer the _gare_ canteen move up and down with jugs of coffee. They are thanked (embraced, if they'd stand it) with embarrassing profusion.