We all try to be as comfortable as we can, and are lucky in having an ex-tailor, who is now a corporal mechanic—promoted, I really believe, for his skill in sewing odd bits of sacking and cloth produced from nowhere at all, on to bits of broken under-carriages and so forth, and making them into armchairs and sofas that would not disgrace the Ritz. * * * * * The other day, when some of us were foraging in a town not very far from a quaint spot called Wipers, the Huns had mistaken the time of their Evening Hate, and started by blowing a house into the road on both sides of our car. These Jack Johnsons are sometimes rather a bore—our party had to wait for the shop people to emerge from their cellars, before we could buy our dinner, and then the third shell came and knocked the opposite house down. However, we had the goods first, so it didn’t much matter. The driver of the car burnt his hand, picking a hot bit of shell out of the car’s way, at a spot where another projectile had pitched and burst, fifty yards ahead of us, and we saw one of the funniest sights in the war—namely, a terrified Belgian civilian running for all he was worth, and taking a complete toss into the shell hole. We picked him up in the car, and his only thanks was a bitter complaint at the jolty way in which the car ran over his own pavé. * * * * * On the way home, we saw one of our Avros hit while observing our heavy gun-fire. It was a horrid sight, as an Archie shell hit the engine full toss. Luckily, the pilot was able to come down safely, but unfortunately it was in the German lines and he was captured. He was at Eton with me, and we were very glad to hear that both he and his observer were practically unhurt;—rotten luck, was it not? But it is all part of our show and what we all expect more or less. To make up for it, next day we got a brace of their machines by a fair stalk and a fair fight in the air, and not by these horrible Archies. * * * * *