There, any night during an air raid, one could not help thinking what would happen if the Boche got a bomb on the Gare, with its thousands of fighting men all jambed together under its glass roof in the semi-darkness.

What a slaughter! And yet through it all, if the old Gare could only speak, it could tell some strange and amusing tales of that time--tales that would make one laugh, but with the laughter there would be a catch in the throat and a swimming in the eyes.

It is extraordinary how funny sometimes the most tragic things can be.
The weather had become very bad and cold, and I worked on all impossible out-of-door days in my room in the "Hotel de la Paix," which was known as the "Bar." My only rule was that the "Bar" was not open till 6.30 p.m.At times it nearly rivalled "Charlie's Bar." At what hour the "Bar" closed I was not always certain, as, no matter who was there, at about 10:30 I used to undress and go to bed, and so accustomed did I get to the clink of glasses and the squirt of the syphons that I slept calmly through it all.

Among the regular attendants when in Amiens were Captain Maude, "Major" Hogg, Colonel MacDowall of the 42nd G.H., Colonel Woodcock, Colonel Belfield (the Spot King), Captain Ernest Courage (Jorrocks), Captains Hale and Inge (then of the Press), Bedelo (Italian correspondent), and Captain Brickman--a merry lot, taking them all round, and that room heard some good stories; some may have been not quite nice, but none were as (p.

057) dirty or disreputable as the room itself, with its smell of mud, paint, drink, smoke, and the fumes from the famous "Flamme Bleue" stove.