Away to the right we could see the spires of a church in a little village nestling among the trees. Our road took its tortuous course through fields as flat as a board. Tall trees flanked the roadside which was separated from the fields by ditches three or four feet wide, serving to drain both road and fields and ultimately emptying into some canal or creek. In this particular part of Flanders hedges were not in universal use for fences. In one place we execrated the Germans for having cut down dozens of the roadside trees, only to discover later that the British themselves had cut them down in order to clear the course for aeroplanes ascending and descending to the aerodrome close by.
We overhauled a trotting dog team dragging a heavy little milk cart and driven by a boy who ran alongside. At the sound of the motor horn the dogs turned sharply to the right without waiting for orders from the boy, ran over his foot, and nearly upset the cart. One judged that they had had some previous and possibly not pleasant experiences with motor cars, and were taking no chances. What the boy said to them was shameful, judged even by our limited knowledge of French and the short time we were within hearing of him.
Coming into the little town of La Gorgue we could see to our right a chateau in quite pretentious gardens—a chateau in which the German Crown Prince is said to have been staying when a British shell crashed through the roof and made him move on the double quick. This town like our own was intersected by a canal which was used both as a sewer and source of water supply for washing purposes. The streets in this town are dirty and ill kept; the stores uninteresting, and the houses squalid; it ran into the next town of Estaires by the continuation of the main street.
Canadian soldiers were everywhere in evidence, wandering along the roads in the manner so characteristic of them. Canadians have never been over fond of saluting officers, and have never quite accepted the statement that it is the uniform of the representative of the King they are called upon to salute—not the man.
The first story I heard was about a chauffeur I had had in Valcartier. He had been standing at the doorway of a store trying to talk to a French girl when a couple of British officers passed. The man did not see them till they were just going by and drew himself up to a sort of a half attention. The officers passed, halted, and came back.
"Why didn't you salute?" queried one officer.
"I didn't see you," replied the man.
"Oh, yes, you did; you came to a kind of sloppy attention as we passed," said the officer.
"Yes," said the man. "I did as you were almost past; but anyway we don't salute much in our army."
"What?" said the officer, "are you a Canadian?"