listening to the machine gun officer's lectures, but what do you think he told us yesterday? Why, that in the event of a retirement machine guns were left behind to cover the retreat, and were sacrificed to save the main body of the Army! Now, wouldn't that be a devil of a fix to be in? No sacrifice stuff for mine--I don't mind taking my chance with the other boys, but I won't stay out there alone." Poor old Bob, we all roasted him about it, but he never went back. Shortly before leaving England almost the entire 10th platoon got leave, and we all went up to London, and I assure you the time we had wasn't slow. Bob and a few of the others whose homes were in London spent part of the time there, but we had a whole week and we spent the last few days together. Among other places of interest, we visited Madame Tussaud's Waxworks, and it was here that Scottie slipped one over Bink. We were all standing at the entrance and Scottie said, "Bink, go and ask the attendant for a program." Bink walked up to the lady at the table, and in his most polite tone said, "Can you let me have a program?" Evidently the attendant didn't hear, for there was no answer, so Bink said in a louder tone, "Say, look here, I want a program"; still there was no response and Bink was beginning to look sore when Scottie yells out, "Come away from there, you darn fool; are you going to talk to that wax figure all day?" Scottie would have "cashed in" right there if Bink could have caught him. The same day we had a good joke on Steve--he had heard that Leicester Lounge was a favourite meeting-place for Canadians, and he decided to go there and see if he could find any of the boys, so he hailed a taxi and gave the man orders to drive him to Leicester Lounge. The driver took him round a couple of blocks and then said, "Here's the place, Sir." Steve paid him and then looked around to find himself in the very spot he started from--he had been standing in front of Leicester Lounge when he took the taxi, and it is just as well that he does not know what that driver thought of him--however, he was sport enough to tell the joke on himself. Well, the week slipped by and we took a couple of extra days on our own account--of course we expected to pay up for it, but we thought it was worth it. Our next leave would be from France, and anything might happen before then. Well, we got back, and to our joy, we found that the Orderly Sergeant had got "soused" and forgot to mark us absent, so maybe we were not glad that we had those two extra days--the only crimes you are sorry for in the Army are the ones that are found out. Several times after this we took "French leave" and went up to London, and then we had our work cut out dodging the military police. Sometimes we were caught and then we had to pass a day or two in "Clink"--or, in other words, guard-room. We had bathing parade once or twice a week, and we would all go down and have a swim in the sea.