Poor dear old Dandy, many were the rides we had together. Many (p. 091) were the jumps we took. Many were the ditches we tumbled into. Many were the unseen barbed wires and overhanging telephone wires which we broke, you with your chest and I with my nose and forehead. Many were the risks we ran in front of batteries in action which neither of us had observed till we found ourselves deafened with a hideous explosion and wrapped in flame. I loved you dearly, Dandy, and I wish I could pull down your soft face towards mine once again, and talk of the times when you took me down Hill 63 and along Hyde Park corner at Ploegsteert. Had I not been wounded and sent back to England at the end of the war, I would have brought you home with me to show to my family--a friend that not merely uncomplainingly but cheerfully, with prancing feet and arching neck and well groomed skin, bore me safely through dangers and darkness, on crowded roads and untracked fields. What dances we have had together, Dandy, when I have got the bands to play a waltz and you have gone through the twists and turns of a performance in which you took an evident delight! I used to tell the men that Dandy and I always came home together. Sometimes I was on his back and sometimes he was on mine, but we always came home together. A few days later my establishment was increased by the purchase of a well-bred little white fox-terrier. He rejoiced in the name of Philo and became my inseparable companion. The men called him my curate. Dandy, Philo and I made a family party which was bound together by very close ties of affection. Though none of us could speak the language of the others, yet the sympathy of each enabled us to understand and appreciate one another's opinions. I always knew what Dandy thought and what he would do. I always knew too what Philo was thinking about. Philo had a great horror of shells. I put this down to the fact that he was born at Beuvry, a place which had been long under shell-fire. When he heard a shell coming in his direction, Philo used to go to the door of the dugout and listen for the explosion, and then come back to me in a state of whining terror. He could not even stand the sound of our own guns. It made him run round and round barking and howling furiously. It was while we were out in rest at Bethune that I was told I could go on a week's leave to London. I was glad of this, not only for the change of scene, but for the sake of getting new clothes. I awoke (p. 092) in the early morning and listened to the French guns pounding away wearily near Souchez. At noon I started with a staff officer in a motor for Boulogne. It was a lovely day, and as we sped down the road through little white unspoilt villages and saw peaceful fields once again, it seemed as if I were waking from a hideous dream. That evening we pulled in to Victoria Station, and heard the Westminster chimes ringing out half past eight.