It was a glorious day—bright, sunny, and a faint fresh wind. Everything seemed bright and rosy. I felt I should have liked to skip along the road like a young bay tree—no, that's wrong—like a ram, only I didn't think it would be quite the thing with my servant there (King's Regulations: Chapter 158, paragraph 96, line 4); besides, he wasn't going on leave, so it would have been rather a dirty trick after all.
We got to the village with aching arms and souvenirs intact. I got my pass, and together with another officer we set out for the station. It was a leave train. Officers from all sorts of different battalions were either in it or going to get in, either here or at the next stop.
Having no wish to get that station into trouble, or myself either, by mentioning its name, I will call it Crême de Menthe. It was the same rotten little place I had arrived at. It is only because I am trying to sell the "station-master" a copy of this book that I call the place a station at all. It really is a decomposing collection of half-hearted buildings and moss-grown rails, with an apology for a platform at one side.
We caught the train with an hour to spare. You can't miss trains in France: there's too much margin allowed on the time-table. The 10.15 leaves at 11.30, the 11.45 at 2.20, and so on; besides, if you did miss your train, you could always catch it up about two fields away, so there's nothing to worry about.
We started. I don't know what time it was.
If you turn up the word "locomotion" in a dictionary, you will find it means "the act or power of moving from place to place"; from locus, a place, and motion, the act of moving. Our engine had got the locus part all right, but was rather weak about the motion. We creaked and squeaked about up the moss-grown track, and groaned our way back into the station time after time, in order to tie on something else behind the train, or to get on to a siding to let a trainload of trench floorboards and plum and apple jangle past up the line. When at last we really started, it was about at the speed of the "Rocket" on its trial trip.
Our enthusiastic "going on leave" ardour was severely tested, and nearly broke down before we reached Boulogne, which we did late that night. But getting there, and mingling with the leave-going crowd which thronged the buffet, made up for all travelling shortcomings. Every variety of officer and army official was represented there. There were colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, quantities of private soldiers, sergeants and corporals, hospital nurses and various other people employed in some war capacity or other. Representatives from every branch of the Army, in fact, whose turn for leave had come.
I left the buffet for a moment to go across to the Transport Office, and walking along through the throng ran into my greatest friend. A most extraordinary chance this! I had not the least idea whereabouts in France he was, or when he might be likely to get leave. His job was in quite a different part, many miles from the Douve. I have known him for many years; we were at school together, and have always seemed to have the lucky knack of bobbing up to the surface simultaneously without prior arrangement. This meeting sent my spirits up higher than ever. We both adjourned to the buffet, and talked away about our various experiences to the accompaniment of cold chicken and ham. A merry scene truly, that buffet—every one filled with thoughts of England. Nearly every one there must have stepped out of the same sort of mud and danger bath that I had. And, my word! it is a first-class feeling: sitting about waiting for the boat when you feel you've earned this seven days' leave. You hear men on all sides getting the last ounce of appreciation out of the unique sensation by saying such things as, "Fancy those poor blighters, sitting in the mud up there; they'll be just about getting near 'Stand to' now."