I went back as an old soldier; my kit and baggage proved it. I had reduced the Christmas tree that I first brought out to a pocket-torch with a fourteen-day battery in it, and a pair of insulated wire-cutters strong enough to cut German wire (the ordinary British army issue would only cut British wire). Instead of a haversack I had a pack like the ones the men carried, but lighter and waterproof. I had lost my revolver when I was wounded and had not bought another; rifle and bayonet could always be got from the battalion. (Not carrying rifle and bayonet made officers conspicuous in an attack; in most divisions now they carried them, and also wore trousers rolled down over their puttees like the men, because the Germans had been taught to recognize them by their thin knees.) Instead of the heavy blankets that I had brought out before I now had an eiderdown sleeping-bag in an oiled-silk cover. I also had Shakespeare and a Bible, both printed on india-paper, a Catullus and a Lucretius in Latin, and two light weight, folding, canvas arm-chairs, one as a present for Yates the quartermaster, the other for myself. I was wearing a very thick whipcord tunic with a neat patch above the second button and another between the shoulders; it was my only salvage from the last time out except the pair of ski-ing boots which I was wearing again, reasonably waterproof—my breeches had been cut off me in hospital. There was a draft of ten young officers with me. As Captain Charles Edmonds notes in his book _A Subaltern’s War_, young officers at this time were expected to be ‘roistering blades with wine and women.’ These ten did their best. Three of them got venereal disease at Rouen. In each case, I believe, it was the first time that they had been with women. They were strictly brought-up Welsh boys of the professional classes and knew nothing about prophylactics. One of them was sharing a hut with me. He came in very late and very drunk one night from the _Drapeau Blanc_, a well-known blue-lamp brothel, woke me up and began telling me what a wonderful time he had. ‘He had never known before,’ he said, ‘what a wonderful thing sex was.’ I said irritably and in some disgust: ‘The _Drapeau Blanc_? Then I hope to God you washed yourself.’ He was very Welsh and on his dignity. ‘What do you mean, captain? I did wass my fa-ace and ha-ands.’ There were no restraints in France as in England; these boys had money to spend and knew that they had a good chance of being killed within a few weeks anyhow. They did not want to die virginal. So venereal hospitals at the base were always crowded. (The troops took a lewd delight in exaggerating the proportion of army chaplains to combatant officers treated there.) The _Drapeau Blanc_ saved the life of scores of them by incapacitating them for future trench service.