Letters to Helen | Page 2

know what it all
means themselves." And Julian is scrutinizing a map of our area.
Everyone is so glad to be going up right into it now. That pottering
about at home was most irritating. Just spit and polish, spit and polish
all the time since August, 1914.
We are all getting cramp, and have to stand up occasionally. Toby has
smoked his fourteenth pipe.
Oh, look! What a lovely rainbow! Treble. And under it a village with
an estaminet, a dozen slate-roofed houses, and a very new château,
hideous with scarlet bricks and chocolate draw-bridge and pepper-pot
turrets. Poplars and more poplars. Still we rumble along through
symmetrical France.

_June 7._
We are in one of the most lovely old French châteaux I have ever
imagined. Half château, half farm, fifteen miles behind the line. We
remain here for two or three days. Arrived late last night, tired and
grubby. But, O ye gods, when dawn began to reveal this old courtyard
with its hens and chickens and pigeons! On one side the old house with
its faded shutters. On the other side the old gateway with a square
tower and a pigeon-cote above. Along the other sides old barns. The
country round we have hardly seen, but it looks exquisite. There are
several most attractive foals in a field close by.
And inside the château funny old-fashioned things--old beds with
frowsty canopies, and old wall-papers with large designs in ferns and
cornucopias. Imitation marble in the hall. Gilded tassels. Alas! my kit
has not yet arrived. It's awful. And the anxiety to draw these things is
feverish. We go so soon.
When you look out of the rooms into the courtyard, you see our
waggons and draft-horses, and the men eating bully-beef like wolves.
Some of them (including Sergeant Cart) are shaving and washing
stripped to the waist. The others just tear at the bread and beef and
munch without speaking. Corporal Nutley and Corporal Field are
pointing with their tea-mugs to the old gateway and the ducks and
things. They all evidently love it. They sleep in the barns amongst the
hay. The sun is warm and sleepy.
_June 8._
[Sidenote: THE CHATEAU-FARM]
Still at this lovely château-farm, and Life seems to have gone into a
trance. I wake up and look out into the courtyard and the sunlight, on
geese, Muscovy ducks, pigs, and pigeons, and it all feels like a
half-forgotten story. There are traces of the Huns, but all that seems
unreal. You hear the boom! boom! boom! of the guns all day, and more
so at night; but nothing can disturb the extraordinary remote peace of
this château. The very stones in the courtyard look more friendly and

more countrified than ordinary stones, as if some ancient fairy lived
here. There's no doubt at all that the men feel it. Several of them have
said how they like the place. They think it's a little bit like ----shire. I
think I know what they mean.
After the war perhaps we may visit the place together: I should love
showing it to you. I'm not at all sure that it's really very beautiful. The
architecture isn't good when you consider it. But somehow....
_June 10._
The same château. We are living a simple and brainless life. No
field-days, of course, and for this relief much thanks. We don't know in
the least what is happening. Troops come and troops go, and guns go
by during the night, and Red Cross waggons go hither and thither, and
the old turkey gobbles.
Yesterday I was out with my troop, quite uninteresting. But what do
you think? Something exploded not 100 yards away from Rinaldo. I
was much farther off, dismounted. He didn't turn a hair, but only
looked round and watched the smoke. Whereas, as you know, a little
bit of paper blown across the road sends him into paroxysms of terror.
[Illustration: A CONFERENCE IN THE CHATEAU DE
FEBVIN-PALFART There are many of these old chateaux-farms in
Northern France. The beds are under great frowsy canopies and all the
curtains are looped up with heavy tassels.]
_June 11._
I went into an old church in a large town ten miles from here to-day
with Sergeant Hodge. There were the usual tinsel things and red baize
and sham flowers. Sergeant Hodge much impressed. He said after we
emerged: "You know, sir, it's very fine indeed. It puts me in mind of a
bazaar." This was in all good faith, and was intended as a great
compliment to the church! We are having lots of rain, which is bad for
the horses, who are picketed in the open. And thunder. It's often
extremely difficult to tell whether, when the thunder is far away, it is

thunder or guns. Quite a