Meanwhile the motor lorries creep demurely along the country lanes, coming nobody knows whence, going nobody knows whither. Now and then they will pause in a convenient ditch, rubbing their wheels briskly in the mud to restore the circulation. A less restful sight is the military car, proceeding at a pace never exceeding twenty kilometres per hour, the occupants of which have also, these days, adopted the three-colour process, a sure sign that we are winning. Fortune favours the brave, and the lightning despatch-rider as often as not will pass through the lot, with the loss of little more than a couple of limbs and half-a-dozen spare parts. Even so, he will not omit to salute you, as you stand off the road, a sight which has a peculiar thrill of its own, since the salute of a motor cyclist consists in his looking fixedly in one direction and proceeding recklessly in another. You cannot help appreciating his courtesy, but in your more nervous moments you can't help wishing he wouldn't do it. By way of contrast to the business of it all is the light-blue Gendarme, unaffected by the entourage of war, ambling peacefully where he will, greeting all and sundry with an expansive smile and growing momentarily ruddier and more fat in his happy face. It is his work in life to get in nobody's way and do no man any harm; it is his pleasure to wear upon his head a helmet of the truest steel, of a type created to ward off hostile shrapnel, but worn by him for the same good reason for which a miller wears a white hat. I count amongst the best of my newly-found friends a certain _chef_ of this merry and bright _escadron_. An ex-Cavalry Officer, he fought through the earlier stages of the War, undaunted by many misadventures. Since he took to the less hazardous pastime of commanding _gendarmerie_, he has found life not so precarious, may be, but a good deal more intricate. He will tell you, if you ask him, the story of the sacred civilian automobile which he once ventured to stop in order to satisfy himself as to its contents. He did not recognise any significant halo surrounding it, though this should have been discernible even in the cloud of dust accompanying it. He had his written instructions to see that the credentials of all who drove through his zone should be _en règle_. Simple and ingenuous as he then was, written instructions were enough for him. The car approached him menacingly, but he stood his horse in the middle of the road and signed to it to stop. The car hooted with hoarse and defiant anger, and a sinister bowler hat was seen and angry words were heard at the window. None the less he stopped it at the risk of his life, and in his best manner (always a nice one) demanded credentials.