and had a good wash and luncheon, and there meeting a very nice engineer officer, I asked him if he could tell me where I could find any lorries going North. I told him my railway experience, and it so moved him that he very kindly sent me off in his own car to St. Pol, where I was picked up by one of our staff cars and taken home in time for dinner. Railway journeys in France were not things to remember with pleasure, and if they were bad for the officers, what must they have been for the poor men in the crowded third-class carriages? At the end of January, our pleasant life at Bruay came to an end, and we moved off to Barlin which was to be our headquarters for a (p. 162) month and a half. It was while we were there that I had an attack of trench-fever, which, like being "crummy," is really part of a complete war experience. Barlin was not a bad place of residence. There were many men within easy reach, and I had an upper room in the Town Hall for use as a chapel. The presence of a well equipped British hospital also gave one opportunities of seeing our wounded men. We had come to know by this time that the first task which lay before us in the opening of spring was the taking of Vimy Ridge, and our life became filled with fresh zest and interest in view of the coming attack. On the 15th of March our Division moved up to a place called Ecoivres, where we were billeted in the old Chateau. The Count who owned the Chateau kept some rooms downstairs for himself, but we occupied all the rest of the building. In the hall upstairs we had a large model of Vimy Ridge, which all the officers and men of the battalions visited in turn, in order to study the character of the land over which they had to charge. In the garden were numerous huts, and in a large building in a street to the right of the Chateau was a billet which held a great number of men. It was almost entirely filled up with tiers upon tiers of wooden shelves, on which the men made their beds. They were reached by wooden stairs. Nearly fifteen hundred men were crowded into the building. On the ground floor beside the door, there was a high platform which commanded a view of the whole interior. On this, one of the bands lived and gave us music in the evening. Every night after dinner, I used to go to the cinema, as we called the place, and have either a service or a talk with the men on general subjects. At such times outsiders would crowd in, and we have had very hearty singing when the band struck up a hymn. I always tried to have some piece of good news to announce, and would get the latest reports from the signallers to read aloud. The men were in splendid spirits, and we were all buoyed up with the hope that we were going to end the war. I used to speak about the war outlook, and would tell the men that there were only two issues before us: Victory or Slavery. When I asked them one night "Which shall it be, Boys?" a loud shout of "Victory!" went up.