gassed was still in a C.C.S., and that afternoon on our return we went to Montreuil to see what G.H.Q. looked like. I was told that Montreuil was a very picturesque old walled city, but that we should not be allowed to enter. However, I had been able to do so many forbidden things in the war that I thought it would be worth trying, so the old Clino sped over the hard macadamized roads from Boulogne till we came to the valley on the opposite side of which the town is situated. We saw many cars coming and going, and many troops by the way, and finally we sped up the hill which leads to the entrance gate. A sentry was standing there, who saluted most properly, and we passed into (p. 268) the sacred city without molestation. It was a delightful old French town, full of historical interest. The narrow streets and quaint old buildings carried one back in thought to the days of chivalry and battles waged by knights in shining armour. We saw some of the churches, and then went to the officers' club for tea. The waitresses at the club were English girls who had taken the place of the men needed at the front. I got them to provide for my friend Lyons in their sitting-room, and I went in to have tea with the officers. A great many were there sitting at small tables. It was interesting to see the badges of so many different regiments. Most of the officers had a good supply of ribbons, and a few of them had lost an eye or a limb, or bore other marks of wounds. I think that almost all of them were staff officers and that some of them were generals. It struck me that the atmosphere to a stranger was rather chilly. The demeanour of the people was much less free than that which we had been accustomed to at the front. Of course Montreuil held the brains of the army, and it was quite right that the directing intelligences there should feel the loftiness of their position. I made up two lines as I was having tea, which I thought hit off the mental attitude of some of the officers present, when they saw a stranger and looked him up and down through their monocles, "I'm on the staff of the G.H.Q., And I'd like to know who the devil are you?" There had been such a democratic upsetting of traditions and customs in the Service, owing to the obliteration of the original British Army, that it was quite refreshing to find that a remnant of Israel had been saved. I paid two visits to the Divisional wing within a few days of each other, and on one occasion, on a baking July day, addressed a battalion of draftees who were about to be sent up to the front. They were a fine looking lot of men and knew their drill. Poor boys, they little knew what was in store for them in those last hundred days of the war.