The next move (November 24th) was to Presles on a frosty day, with billets for the officers in the superbly comfortable Château, with its pictures and wallpapers intact on the wall, handles to the doors, and roofs of flawless integrity. To wake up among surroundings that had altogether escaped the past four years was curious. (“Somehow or other, it felt like being in a shop where everything was free, and one could take down what one wanted. I remember looking at a ceiling with flowers painted on it one morning and wondering how it hadn’t been cracked.”) They were landed in the dull and cramped village of Lesves by November the 25th and rained upon in their utter boredom. Our national methods of conquest have nothing spectacular. They were neither talked to, sung to, nor lectured on their victory, nor encouraged to demonstrate their superiority over the rest of mankind. They marched and mourned that they had not brought spare boots. Company physical training and drills were kept up, and the sole thing approaching war was a football match of the right half-battalion against the left, which blossomed into an argument, which verged upon a free fight and, almost, the slaughter of the umpire. At Petit Han, in the remoter districts of the border where the people had accepted the Hun from the first, and had profited by his rule, the attitude of the civilians changed. Here they were prosperous pacifists who objected to militarism; even cursing and swearing and shaking their fists at the invaders. So one old lady had to be gently locked up in her own room for two hours while billets were being arranged and the officers patiently argued and entreated. Ouffey, another hamlet of a few sad houses, was of the same unaccommodating temper, and their transport turned up hours late after being delayed by traffic and bad roads. A halt was necessary here to sort out the general confusion of our brigades converging on Cologne. They were held, then, at Ouffey till the 10th December, another day at Aisomont, an unknown village, and at last on the 12th crossed into Germany from Stavelot at Pont Rucken with the Brigade. The Battalion, whose staff never neglected their interests, had contrived to secure waterproof capes at some issue or other, which they wore under the approving eyes of the Corps Commander, who watched the march past in the unending rain. Honsfeld was their last journey afoot; there they got orders to go south to Burg and entrain for Cologne, and at Ehrenfeld, on the outskirts of that city, they dropped into the Pioneer Barracks, fitted with every luxury from electric-light to drying-rooms and baths, and found the inhabitants both friendly and intensely curious.