"Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do anything likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be trusted; your conduct will justify that welcome and that trust. Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy. "Do your duty bravely, "Fear God, "Honour the King. "(Signed), KITCHENER, Field Marshal," CHAPTER XXVI A LUNCHEON AT BRITISH HEADQUARTERS The same high-crowned roads, with pitfalls of mud at each side; the same lines of trees; the same coating of ooze, over which the car slid dangerously. But a new element--khaki. Khaki everywhere--uniforms, tents, transports, all of the same hue. Skins, too, where one happens on the Indian troops. It is difficult to tell where their faces end and their yellow turbans begin. Except for the slightly rolling landscape and the khaki one might have been behind the Belgian or French Army. There were as usual aëroplanes overhead, clouds of shrapnel smoke, and not far away the thunder of cannonading. After a time even that ceased, for I was on my way to British General Headquarters, well back from the front. I carried letters from England to Field Marshal Sir John French, to Colonel Brinsley Fitzgerald, aid-de-camp to the "Chief," as he is called, and to General Huguet, the _liaison_ between the French and English Armies. His official title is something entirely different, but the French word is apt. He is the connecting link between the English and French Armies. I sent these letters to headquarters, and waited in the small hotel for developments. The British antipathy to correspondents was well known. True, there were indications that a certain relaxation was about to take place. Frederick Palmer in London had been notified that before long he would be sent across, and I had heard that some of the London newspapers, the _Times_ and a few others, were to be allowed a day at the lines. But at the time my machine drew into that little French town and deposited me in front of a wretched inn, no correspondent had been to the British lines. It was _terra incognita_. Even London knew very little. It was rumoured that such part of the Canadian contingent as had left England up to that time had been sent to the eastern field, to Egypt or the Dardanelles. With the exception of Sir John French's reports and the "Somewhere in France" notes of "Eyewitness," a British officer at the front, England was taking her army on faith.