My final night in Amiens was equally typical. I went to the officers’ club and found a sing-song in progress. There was a cavalry major there who had been in the show at Cambrai. He was evidently a hunting-man, for he kept on getting off his hunting calls whenever things threatened to become dull. Most of the music was rag-time, which offended him very much. “Let’s sing something English,” he kept on saying. So we gave him “John Peel,” “Hearts of Oak,” “Drink to me only with thine Eyes”—and he went to bed happy. I had a good fast car, so using Amiens as our base we struck into the Aisne, Oise, and Somme, covering a good many kilometres a day. In these districts the Huns were masters a year ago—and now we are ploughing. The enemy withdrew from these districts last March. Nearly all the demolition is wilful, and very little of it is due to shell-fire. In town after town scarcely a house is left standing—everything is gutted. The American Red Cross is trying to do something to alleviate this distress. It was in a ruined château I found the Smith College Unit and, much to my surprise, Miss W. from Newark, who had just received a letter from M. She was wanting to go to Amiens, so we put her in the car and took her back with us. I’m longing to get to England to read all your letters. I feel quite out of touch. To-morrow I shall be in London. I was in Paris when the Huns were overhead, and saw one of them come down. The calmness of the people was amazing. There was no dashing for the Métro or other funk holes; only a contemptuous cheeriness. The French are great. XXX London February 18, 1918 To-day I have made a start on my book Out to Win, and miss you very much. It’s quite a difficult thing, I find, to really concentrate on literary work in a strange environment. I wish I could take a magic powder and find myself back in my own little study, with my own little family, till the book is written. Heaps of people I met in France were returning to America, and promised to telephone you to say they had seen me. I stumbled across a most inspiring conversation which I overheard the other day, and which, if I had time, I would work into a story, entitled “His Bit.” I was sitting in front of two women on a bus. “Well,” said one, “when they told me that Phil was married, you could 'ave knocked me darn wiv a feather.” It transpired that Phil was a C3 class man, no good for active service. He had met a girl, turned out into the streets by her parents because she was about to have a child by a soldier now dead, whom she had not married. Phil, without asking her any questions, did his “bit”—led her off and married her right away because he was sorry for her.