So Toby and I go off together. Up till now he has been good to me. He has bitten one Company Commander, removed another, and led the Colonel a three-mile chase across country after him, so if any misunderstanding occurs between us there will be good precedent for it. So far my only real trouble has been once when billeting. Billeting is delightful fun. You start three hours in advance of the battalion, which means that if the battalion leaves at eight in the morning, you are up in the fresh of the day, when the birds are singing. You arrive at the village and get from the Mayor or the Town Major a list of possible hostesses. Entering the first house (labeled "Officers 5") you say, "_Vous avez un lit pour un Officier ici, n'est-ce pas? Vive la France_!" She answers, "_Pas un lit_," and you go to the next house. "_Vous avez place pour cent hommes--oui?" "Non_," says she--and so on. By-and-by the battalion arrives, and everybody surrounds you. "Where are _my_ men going?" "Where is _my_ billet?" "Where's 'C' Company's mess?" "Have you found anything for the Pioneers?" And so one knows what it is to be popular. Well, the other day the Major thought he'd come with me, just to give me an idea how it ought to be done. I say nothing of the result; but for reasons connected with Toby I hope he won't come again. For in the middle of a narrow street crowded with lorries, he jumped off his horse, flung (I think that's the expression)--flung me the reins and said, "Just wait here while I see the Mayor a moment." The Major's horse I can describe quite shortly--a nasty big black horse. Toby I have already described as a nice horse, but he had been knee-deep in mud, inspecting huts, for nearly half an hour, and was sick of billeting. I need not describe two-hundred-lorries-on-a-dark-evening to you. And so, seeing that you know the constituents, I must let you imagine how they all mixed.... * * * * * This is a beastly war. But it has its times; and when our own particular bit of the battle is over, and what is left of the battalion is marching back to rest, I doubt if, even in England (which seems very far off), you will find two people more contented with the morning than Toby and I, as we jog along together. COMMON Seated in your comfortable club, my very dear sir, or in your delightful drawing-room, madam, you may smile pityingly at the idea of a mascot saving anybody's life. "What will be, will be," you say to yourself (or in Italian to your friends), "and to suppose that a charm round the neck of a soldier will divert a German shell is ridiculous." But out there, through the crumps, things look otherwise.