A muddy, unkempt battalion would arrive in search of rest and recuperation. It distributed itself among houses, cottages, and barns, while the Frenchwomen looked sweet or sour according to their diverse tempers, and whether they kept estaminets, sold farm produce, had husbands _làbas_, or merely feared for their poultry and the cleanliness of their homes. Next day the exhausted men would reappear as beaux sabreurs with bright buttons, clean if discoloured tunics, and a jaunty, untired walk. The drum and fife band practised in the tiny square before an enthusiastic audience of gamins. Late every afternoon the aerodrome was certain to be crowded by inquisitive Tommies, whose peculiar joy it was to watch a homing party land and examine the machines for bullet marks. The officers made overtures on the subject of joy-rides, or discussed transfers to the Flying Corps. Interchange of mess courtesies took place, attended by a brisk business in yarns and a mutual appreciation of the work done by R.F.C. and infantry. Then, one fine day, the drum and fife rhythm of "A Long, Long Trail" would draw us to the roadside, while our friends marched away to Mouquet Farm, or Beaumont Hamel, or Hohenzollern Redoubt, or some other point of the changing front that the Hun was about to lose. And as they left, the men were mostly silent; though they looked debonair enough with their swinging quickstep and easy carriage, and their frying-pan hats set at all sorts of rakish angles. Their officers would nod, glance enviously at the apple-trees and tents in our pleasant little orchard, and pass on to the front of the Front, and all that this implied in the way of mud, vermin, sudden death, suspense, and damnable discomfort. And returning to the orchard we offered selfish thanks to Providence in that we were not as the millions who hold and take trenches.