n’est pas convenable.”’ I was glad when we were back in trenches. And there I had a more or less reassuring letter from Dick. He told me that I was right, that my cousin had a spite against him and me, that he had been ragging about in a silly way, but that there was not much harm to it; he was very sorry and would stop it for the sake of our friendship. At the end of July, I and Robertson, one of the other five Royal Welch officers who had been attached to the Welsh, got orders to proceed to the Laventie sector, some miles to the north. We were to report to the Second Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Frank Jones-Bateman and Hanmer Jones, two more of us, went to the First Battalion. The remaining two of the six had already gone back, McLellan sick and Watkin with bomb wounds that have kept him limping ever since. We were sorry to say good-bye to the men; they all crowded round to shake hands and wish us luck. And we felt a little sorry too that we had to start all over again getting to know a new company and new regimental customs. But it would be worth it, to be with our own regiment. Robertson and I agreed to take our journey as leisurely as possible. Laventie was only seventeen miles away, but our orders were to go there by train; so a mess-cart took us down to Béthune. We asked the railway transport officer what trains he had to Laventie. He told us one was going in a few minutes; we decided to miss it. There was no train after that until the next day, so we stopped the night at the Hotel de la France. (The Prince of Wales, who was a lieutenant in the Fortieth Siege Battery, was billeted there sometimes. He was a familiar figure in Béthune. I only spoke to him once; it was in the public bath, where he and I were the only bathers one morning. He was graciously pleased to remark how emphatically cold the water was and I loyally assented that he was emphatically right. We were very pink and white and did exercises on the horizontal bar afterwards. I joked to Frank about it: ‘I have just met our future King in a bath.’ Frank said: ‘I can trump that. Two days ago I had a friendly talk with him in the A.S.C. latrines.’ The Prince’s favourite rendezvous was the _Globe_, a café in the Béthune market square reserved for British officers and French civilians; principally spies by the look of them. I once heard him complaining indignantly that General French had refused to let him go up into the line.)