The bun shops in Boulogne were filled with nurses, V.A.D.'s, all kinds of girls in uniforms which glinted with shoulder-straps and buttons. They ate large quantities of buns at odd hours of mornings and afternoons. Flying-men and officers of all kinds waiting for trains crowded the Folkestone Hotel and restaurants, where they spent two hours over luncheon and three hours over dinner, drinking red wine, talking “shop”--the shop of trench-mortar units, machine-gun sections, cavalry squadrons, air-fighting, gas schools, and anti-gas schools. Regular inhabitants of Boulogne, officers at the base, passed to inner rooms with French ladies of dangerous appearance, and the transients envied them and said: “Those fellows have all the luck! What's their secret? How do they arrange these cushie jobs?” From open windows came the music of gramophones. Through half-drawn curtains there were glimpses of khaki tunics and Sam Brown belts in juxtaposition with silk blouses and coiled hair and white arms. Opposite the Folkestone there was a park of ambulances driven by “Scottish women,” who were always on the move from one part of the town to the other. Motor-cars came hooting with staff-officers, all aglow in red tabs and armbands, thirsty for little cocktails after a dusty drive. Everywhere in the streets and on the esplanade there was incessant saluting. The arms of men were never still. It was like the St. Vitus disease. Tommies and Jocks saluted every subaltern with an automatic gesture of convulsive energy. Every subaltern acknowledged these movements and in turn saluted a multitude of majors, colonels, and generals. The thing became farcical, a monstrous absurdity of human relationship, yet pleasing to the vanity of men lifted up above the lowest caste. It seemed to me an intensification of the snob instinct in the soul of man. Only the Australians stood out against it, and went by all officers except their own with a careless slouch and a look of “To hell with all that handwagging.” Seated on high stools in the Folkestone, our young officers clinked their cocktails, and then whispered together. “When's it coming?” “In a few days... I'm for the Gommecourt sector.” “Do you think we shall get through?” “Not a doubt of it. The cavalry are massing for a great drive. As soon as we make the gap they'll ride into the blue.” “By God!... There'll be some slaughter” “I think the old Boche will crack this time.” “Well, cheerio!”