The other squadron at last quite close to us. Long talks with Dennis. He's had an exciting time, and was under orders for a most hair-raising job, which didn't come off owing to Fritz's tiresome habit of doing the unexpected. Horrors! The General has been trying Swallow. I fear he may steal him. Of course he has every right to any horse in the regiment, but it is quite difficult to smile. Swallow is, unfortunately, even more showy than Rinaldo was; but he shied at a goat, bless him, and I think that may just turn the scale. I shall now proceed to train Swallow to shy at every blade of grass, every grain of sand. Long live that goat! We are still "standing by." It is a wearing existence. I bathed yesterday in a well-known river. So beautiful and willowy. _July 28._ [Sidenote: A BATH] Temperature 100,000°! And I am lying on a bed in a wee cottage, very, very dusty and dirty. Hale, however, is going to bring some water from the pump, and, oh Jerusalem, won't it be heavenly--a bath! All these things off, and lovely clean things on, and lovely coffee to drink when that's done. I wouldn't change the prospects of the next half-hour for all the pearls and peacocks of Araby--no, not if you offered me the Peace of Europe! Europe be blowed! I want my bath. You see, it's like this: The corps H.Q. moved to a different area some days ago, preceded by us. Everything in the area left in an utterly unorganized, uncatalogued condition. We have to tear round and find out where the various divisions can go. And we have _got_ to find room for more divisions than have ever occupied this area before. Useless to come back and report that such and such villages have no water for men or horses. The water has got to be found. Dig for it. Organize fatigue-parties and dig. Dam up little trickles by the roadside until quite large ponds are formed. Get the engineers and pioneers on to it. Labour battalions--anything. So I've been riding madly about, and I'm like a treacle pudding in a sand-storm. The bath! Hale, you are a most excellent fellow. That'll do splendidly. Have you got my towel?... INTERVAL.... And now, dear friends, it is another man that you see before you. A man who has had a bath. A man less like a bit of oily motor-waste, and more like Sir George Alexander. This delicious coffee, too! A bowl of it, made by Mme. Whatever-her-name-is. I take it up in both hands and quaff it. Here's to You and to Home, and to Everybody--and (just to show there's no ill feeling) here's to the poor old Boche! _July 29._ In the same cottage. It's very hot. Ammunition lorries go by in an endless string, making the deuce of a dust. But we are far away from guns and gun food and noise. I got leave to go up to ---- yesterday.