the entrance of each house and yard a sign had
been painted. It might be: "Billets for fifteen
men," or "Officers' billets," or "Stabling for ten
horses." Restful legends for troops fresh from
the trenches. And we didn't have to be told that
those men were not of the class in training. The
lines of their faces, their air of confidence and
pride, marked them for veterans.
We were getting very close.
It is a curious fact that always on approaching the front line you experience a sense of reluctance mixed with a desire to accomplish just that from which you shrink. It is possible at one moment to resent each turning of the wheels, and the next to wonder at your good-fortune in travelling in such a direction at all. But long before you reach your goal you are aware of that strain which makes it wise to send men back to billets, and all that day the strain grows and colours the days ahead less alluringly.
Our nearness was apparent when, beneath a bland sun which had routed the mist, we swung into a road along a poplar-bordered canal. A sullen roar, exactly like the distant explosion of a giant cracker on the Fourth of July, disturbed the peace of water and shrubbery. For a moment it deadened the songs of birds. It made it seem natural we should sweep past barges, painted
