Along this ride we marched, two-deep now, and I at the rear as second-in-command. Here I felt most strongly that strange glamour of unreality. It was but three months ago, and I was in the heart of Wales, yet such was the effect of a few months that I looked on everything with the most exuberant sense of novelty. The rain-beads on the red-brown birch trees; the ivy; the oaks; the strange stillness in the thick wood after the gusts of wind and slashes of rain; especially the sounds--chattering jays, invisible peeping birds, the squelching of boots on a wet grass track--everything reminded me of a past world that seemed immeasurably distant, of past winters that had been completely forgotten. Then we emerged into a wide clearing along the edge of the wood, full of stunted gorse and junipers. Long coarse grass grew in tussocks that matted under foot; and now I could see the whole company straggling along in front of me, slipping and sliding about on the wet grass in their curious kilt-like costumes, some of which were now showing signs of uneasiness and tending to slip in rings to the ground. Everyone was very pleased with life. A halt was called at length, and while officers discussed buying shot-guns at Amiens, or stalking the wily hare with a revolver, Tommy, I have reason to believe, was planning more effective means of snaring Brer rabbit. Next day in orders appeared an extract from corps orders _re_ prohibition of poaching and destruction of game. It was all part of the dream that we were surprised, almost shocked, at this unwarranted exhibition of property rights! Not that there was much game about, anyhow.