On the move. This is our first day's trek, and we are at a place where we have been before--but not the same billets. I am in a cottage with an earth floor (which looks very odd with a hideous drab-coloured wall-paper), and small children and hens, both dirty, wander in and out of my room. It's too hot to keep the door latched. A swallow's nest in the room next door; and the people say that, although the young have flown, they still return at night. _August 19._ The Adjutant is away, and won't be returning for some time; so I am still acting. And this, together with signal work, etc., is somewhat arduous. I live all day in the "office," a very small bivouac in a green field. There I sit praying for inspiration, when letters come in marked _Urgent_, beginning something like this: "LP/3657042--G1. "Ref. your memo HC/516342/L12 of 13/8/16, please find A.F. 361B for completion and immediate return." And I haven't the least idea what I said in my memo HC/516342/L12 of 13/8/16, and I can't find any record of it. And I can't for the life of me make out how I am meant to fill in A.F. 361B, because I haven't the least idea what it's all about. _August 26._ [Sidenote: BEHIND KEMMEL] Impossible to write yesterday, and only a brief scrawl to-day. The regiment is being scattered over the face of the earth--an O.P. here, an O.P. there; a digging-party here, a draining-party there, etc., etc., etc.; not to mention a few on duty as military police _pro tem._, others guarding bomb shelters, others reconnoitring new areas for new divisions, etc. Dennis is very badly wounded. He can't be moved yet. Some bits of shell went into his thigh, up his back, and it's not certain yet whether it entered his lungs or not. They are afraid so. He was on his tummy at an O.P. A crump got him. Dear old Dennis! I hope he'll pull round. Also Clive is very seriously wounded, I fear. Damn! _August 27._ I am Acting Adjutant now. An Adjutant's job is a most hairy job, and I sit with drops of perspiration dripping off my brow all day. Never see the horses, never get any exercise except for a moment or two. _August 29._ We are probably going to move again soon, and consequently the amount of correspondence is vast. Clive is better, I think. Dennis about the same. I suppose a thing can go into your lung and not kill you? _September 2._ The Colonel seemed (from a telegram he sent yesterday morning) to be in a great hurry for me to come down to the other squadron. So I decided to go by train, and send Hunt with the horses. And this is the train journey.