The sisters chatted in French very pleasantly, and I took them to their convent headquarters in Bailleul.
I could see, as I passed through the village, how amused our men were at my use of the car.

When I arrived at the convent door at Bailleul, the good ladies alighted and then asked me to give them my blessing.
How could I refuse, or enter upon a discussion of the validity of Anglican Orders?
The nuns with their hands crossed on their bosoms leaned forward, and I stood up and blessed them from the car, and departed leaving them both grateful and gratified.
The village of St.Jans Cappel had been captured by the Germans in their advance in 1914, and we heard some unpleasant tales of the rudeness of the German officers who took up their quarters in the convent and compelled the nuns to wait upon them at the table.

In 1918, when the Germans made their big push round Mont Kemmel, St.Jans Cappel, along with Bailleul and Meteren, was captured once more by the enemy, and the village is now in ruins and its inhabitants scattered.
I do not look back with much pleasure to the cold rides which I always used to have on my return from the line.

In frosty weather the pave roads were very slippery, and I had to walk Dandy most of the distance, while I got colder and colder, and beguiled the time by composing poems or limericks on places at the front.

Arriving at my billet in the small hours of the morning, I would find my friend Ross not always in the best of humors at being kept up so late.