“Nineteen, I make it.” “Wish I hadn’t asked you,” I laughed. “No porridge, Lewis. Bring the eggs and bacon in at once. This tea’ll do. There’s no milk, though. What?” Edwards had asked something. He repeated his question, which was whether I wanted Jim, the company horse, this afternoon. I thought rapidly, and the scent of the lilac decided me. “Yes,” I answered. “Sorry, but I do.” “Oh, all right; I expect I can get old Muskett to let me have one.” Muskett was the transport officer. “Righto,” said I. “Go teach thy Lewis gunners how to drill little holes in the chalk-bank.” He clattered off over the cobbles of the garden path, and in a few minutes I followed suit, running until I rounded a corner and came into view of the orderly-room, when I altered my gait to a dignified walk and arrived just as the Colonel appeared from the opposite direction. “Parade! Tchern!!” shouted Sergeant-Major Shandon; and a moment later the four company commanders came to attention and saluted as the Colonel passed in, sprinkling “Good mornings” to right and left. I had one very uninteresting case of drunkenness; “A” had a couple of men who had overstayed their pass in England; “C” had a case held over from the day before for further evidence, and was now dismissed as not proven; while “D” had an unsatisfactory sergeant who was “severely reprimanded.” All these cases were quickly and unerringly disposed of, and we company commanders saluted again and clattered down the winding staircase out into the sunshine. I had to pass from one end of the village to the other. The orderly-room was not far from our company “Mess” and was at a cross-roads. Opposite, in one of the angles made by the junction of the four roads, was a deep and usually muddy horse-pond. But even here the mud was getting hard under this spell of warm May weather, and the innumerable ruts and hoof-marks were crystallising into a permanent pattern. As I walked along the streets I passed sundry Tommies acting as road-scavengers; “permanent road fatigue” they were called, although they were anything but permanent, being changed every day. Formerly they had seemed to be engaged in a Herculean, though unromantic, task of scraping great rolling puddings of mud to the side of the road, in the vain hope that the mud would find an automatic exit into neighbouring gardens and ponds; for Morlancourt did not boast such modern things as gutters. To-day there were large pats of mud lining the street, but these were now caked and hard, and even crumbling into dust, that whisked about among the sparrows. The permanent road fatigue was gathering waste-paper and tins in large quantities, but otherwise was having a holiday.