Letters to Helen | Page 6

out, and he saw the one and only shell
the Boches sent over, exploding quite close to the aforementioned
dug-out.
Isn't it funny. The Boches don't apparently know of this dug-out, or of
the cable trenches, or they would, of course, smash it to pieces. And,
for some reason that I haven't yet grasped, they never reply to our guns
immediately. They wait for perhaps ten minutes, and then they don't

always reply to the same spot we spoke from. As, for example, this
wood. Our guns were all in and round about the wood. The Boches
apparently strafed back at an unoffending village on the west side of
the hill.
So, with our guns still behaving like things delirious, we eventually
reached the horses. Jezebel was quietly gorging herself with long
luscious grass beside the hedge. She told me she hadn't noticed
anything unusual. Poor Swallow was standing quite still, with his
nostrils wide open, breathing hard and trembling all over. A good many
horses were trembling, but the majority agreed with Jezebel: "It's only
some silly nonsense on the part of those Human Beings again. Don't
listen."
Then we saddled up and rode back to a place well behind, where we
could exercise the beasties. They had been given no exercise for three
days. And so home again to this farm. The horses are all in a field
surrounded by trees, and couldn't be seen from above at all. I have seen
lots of other horse-lines of other units, though, much closer to the front
than this is--quite open to view. The fact is, I think, that Hun aircraft
very seldom indeed gets across into our preserves.
[Illustration: LE MONT DES CATS Near YPRES In the early days of
the war spies used to signal from the monastery on the top of this hill.
The country round about is quite flat and water-logged.]
_July 6._
[Sidenote: THE ROADS NEAR DRANONTRE]
Overnight it appears in orders that the roads from ---- to ---- via ---- are
to be reported on with reference to their suitability for heavy transport,
guns, cavalry, infantry, etc.
So after an early breakfast Hunt comes round, with Swallow for me and
Jezebel for himself, haversack rations for us both, and feeds for the
horses. I feel very much on the qui-vive, as I haven't seen that
particular part before.

A grey warm day. Some miles to go due south before we get near our
destination. As we approach it we find, as usual, roads and railways
being made, and fatigue-parties repainting tents with blotches and
stripes. Then come notices, "No traffic along this road," or, "This road
liable to be shelled," with signboards at every corner, "To ----" or some
other place in the trenches. Sometimes the notices say
"Something-or-other Avenue" or "Burlington Arcade," etc.--nicknames,
but recognized officially. And all the time we are passing endless
lorries and Red Cross waggons and troops and dug-out camps. As we
get closer the signs of shelling get worse, and children are seen no
longer. Old men, though, occasionally observed working in a field
quite unperturbed. Rarely a French soldier or an interpreter with his
sphinx badges. All this quite lost on Hunt, who has "quite got used to
abroad, thank you, sir." He is eating chocolate or something, half a
horse-length (the correct distance) behind me.
Now on our left is a famous ridge, with a ruined village on the top. Not,
you understand, a ridge in the Swiss sense, but rather in the Norfolk
sense. I should like to go and see it, but it's too open to the Boche's eye,
and I don't want to dismount yet. So we curve round right-handed a bit.
Aha! "To ----." Nous voilà! Follow down this muddy track under cover
of the ridge, and we arrive at ----. A wood just beyond the little town.
Oh, mournful wood! "Bois épais, redouble ton ombre." But they say the
anemones and the primroses were as merry and sweet as ever this
spring. Bravo little wood!
The village is, of course, evacuated by all inhabitants. The houses all in
ruins. By now all the remaining windows have been boarded up and the
blown-out doors barred against prying eyes. Here we are at an old
estaminet called "Aux Coeurs joyeux." There's hardly anything but the
sign left. At the cross-roads in the centre of the town is the church, so
dismal. No roof, pillars broken and lying about the floor amongst
débris of broken images, chairs, and muddy rubble.
[Sidenote: PLOEGSTEERT]
As I am coming out I turn over the hand of an image, and underneath it
what the deuce is this? Why, a fragment of an old picture, torn and

decaying away. What shall I do? Leave it to rot? Give it to ... Yes,