It is interesting now to record that the officer commanding the company to which I was lent was a man I had known in times of peace and loathed to the point which drives a man to homicide. He was a fine great fellow, but a bit rough with subalterns, and had, as he no doubt thought for my own good, made my life a burden to me when I joined the regiment. I often used to say to myself, when discipline and mess etiquette prevented my replying to his remarks to me in the anteroom in days of peace: "My sainted aunt--if ever I get alone with you in the desert, my friend, I'll shoot." For two or three years we never spoke to each other, and then suddenly I found myself sent up to serve under him in the firing-line in front of La Bassée. How circumstances alter cases. He had me in his hands then. Had he been the bully I thought him, there were a hundred dirty jobs he could have made me do. He could have sent me out on patrol or with messages to the next regiment. There were many nasty things which had to be done that night. But all he said, when I came up and reported myself as having been sent up to reinforce him with a platoon, was: "Hullo, old chap. Look here, I just want you to put your men along here, do you see?"--indicating the gap he wanted filled--"and when you've done that, come into the cottage and have a bit of dinner." It was hospitable at a time when each man carried his own rations for the day, and I had none left. The putting out of patrols and walking up and down the line he did himself rather than ask me, whose job it was as his subaltern for the time being. A few days later, when I was hit, he was one of the first people to come up to me, and he was himself killed five minutes later, gallantly leading a charge to drive the Germans back from the spot where the wounded were dying. While we were having dinner, the other subalterns and myself compared notes about the different quarters we had for the night; one saying he had not room to lie down in his dug-out; another that he had found a lot of hay and made a fine lair; and the machine-gun officer saying that he was best off of all, as he had his guns peeping from the window of a bedroom above, and proposed to spend the night in bed by the side of them. When the meal was over and we had had a smoke, we dispersed to the different sections of the defence we were holding. I found that Jenkins had made a beautiful dug-out, lined it with straw, and roofed it with some V-shaped pieces of thatch which the peasants in that part of France use to protect their fruit. He had allowed just the right space for me to lie down, and done everything he could think of that would enable us to spend the night comfortably. Jenkins in private life was a chauffeur-valet, of a fastidious, easily ruffled, and slightly grasping disposition. However, though he would have died rather than wear some of my old clothes, he was so well able to adapt himself to the war that he won the D.C.M.