LORD ROBERTS'S FUNERAL: THE SCENE ON THE QUAY
A large legend announced the train's destination as "Berlin," whilst great guns, daubed with their appropriate names, "Homeless Hector" and "Weary Willie," pointed their inquiring noses innocuously at the sky.
This, we were told, was the armoured train which, under Commander Samson's guidance, played such havoc with the enemy and caused the Kaiser to put a price worth having on that gallant officer's head.
November 23rd. The baths closed most suddenly and unexpectedly last night. The owners' exorbitant demands for money—damages for towels which we have not even used, walls, ceilings, windows, etc., that are in the same good repair as when we came—have made it imperative to commandeer the place or, to avoid friction and expense, erect new ones.
After the Major and his interpreter driver (a dentist who volunteered his services) had spent nearly two hours haranguing Madame and her homme d'affaires, we cleared the place out.
Snow fell for the first time during the night, and it is freezing so hard this morning that the hot water thrown over the stones outside for cleansing purposes becomes ice at once.
Having a free day, I explored the place from Le Portel, the quaint little fishing village where fishwives, with their wide, hooped skirts, their quaint poke bonnets or characteristic snowy white headgear and clogs, predominate, to the St. Pierre quarter, cobbled like the new town itself, but built in tier after tier of terraces, characterised by an indescribable, if picturesque, squalor and dirt.