What the motor has done is to alter the whole face of things because of the extraordinary rapidity with which it enables you to fling troops or supplies up to the Front or transport them from point to point. But for the effective use of motor vehicles you need pretty good roads. You will remember how in the earlier months of the War, ourselves, the Germans and the French effected big troop movements simply by motor transport. You will recall the occasion on which the French flung a force across the suburbs of Paris and attacked the Boches on the right, thus beginning the movement known as the Battle of the Marne. Then there was the occasion when Hindenburg attacked the Russians in October, 1914, feinting at their left and striking at their right at Tannenberg with a force of armoured cars, cavalry, and infantry conveyed in motors. Neither of these movements could have been achieved before the advent of motor transport. As this war progresses, the need for really capable and cool-headed motor drivers will steadily increase. But it will be none the less invaluable to know how to manage a horse--whether to ride it, drive a wagon, or ride-and-drive in a limber. One of our limber horses is a grey captured from the Germans last year. He is a very good worker and doesn't seem to mind being a prisoner in the least. I must tell you of a funny incident. That night when we were sleeping on the heath, which I referred to in a previous letter (p. 149), our Medical Officer was awakened at 2 A.M. by a frantic signaller, that is, one of the R.E. motor-cycle dispatch riders. It was pouring rain at the time and bitterly cold. The signaller solemnly handed the M.O. an envelope marked "Urgent and Special." The M.O. opened it, his mind full of visions of men mortally stricken awaiting immediate attention and of other tragic things. Judge his astonishment when he found inside the following note from his O.C.: "Kindly render your monthly inoculation return to Headquarters before the end of the week." What the M.O. said is unprintable, as this return had already been sent in, and, in any case, is just a formality of no importance to anybody. My affection for the British soldier deepens the more I know of him. To a student of human nature it is an everlasting joy to get Tommy to tell you his experiences in his own inimitable language, interspersed with all sorts of gory adjectives. It is so different from and better than the sort of thing you read in the Society papers. Human nature as it really is comes out strongly in these splendid men at the Front. A talk with Tommy is of intense interest to a chap as keen as I am on psychology. _November 5th, 1915._