The Adjutant speaks, hoarsely; while he speaks he writes about something quite different.  In the middle of each sentence his pipe goes out; at the end of each sentence he lights a match.  He may or may not light his pipe; anyhow he speaks:—­

  “Where is that list of Wesleyans I made? 
  And what are all those people on the stair? 
  Is that my pencil?  Well, they can’t be paid. 
  Tell the Marines we have no forms to spare. 
  I cannot get these Ration States to square. 
  The Brigadier is coming round, they say. 
  The Colonel wants a man to cut his hair. 
  I think I must be going mad to-day.

  “These silly questions!  I shall tell Brigade
  This office is now closing for repair. 
  They want to know what Mr. Johnstone weighed,
  And if the Armourer is dark, or fair? 
  I do not know; I cannot say I care. 
  Tell that Interpreter to go away. 
  Where is my signal-pad?  I left it there. 
  I think I must be going mad to-day.

  “Perhaps I should appear upon parade. 
  Where is my pencil?  Ring up Captain Eyre;
  Say I regret our tools have been mislaid. 
  These companies would make Sir DOUGLAS swear. 
  A is the worst.  Oh, damn, is this the Maire?
  I’m sorry, Monsieur—­je suis desole—­
  But no one’s pinched your miserable chair. 
  I think I must be going mad to-day.

  ENVOI.

  “Prince, I perceive what CAIN’S temptations were,
  And how attractive it must be to slay. 
  O Lord, the General!  This is hard to bear. 
  I think I must be going mad to-day.”

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

If there is one man in France whom I do not envy it is the G.H.Q.  Weather Prophet.  I can picture the unfortunate wizard sitting in his bureau, gazing into a crystal, Old Moore’s Almanack in one hand, a piece of seaweed in the other, trying to guess what tricks the weather will be up to next.

For there is nothing this climate cannot do.  As a quick-change artist it stands sanspareil (French) and nulli secundus (Latin).

And now it seems to have mislaid the Spring altogether.  Summer has come at one stride.  Yesterday the staff-cars smothered one with mud as they whirled past; to-day they choke one with dust.  Yesterday the authorities were issuing precautions against frostbite; to-day they are issuing precautions against sunstroke.  Nevertheless we are not complaining.  It will take a lot of sunshine to kill us; we like it, and we don’t mind saying so.

The B.E.F. has cast from it its mitts and jerkins and whale-oil, emerged from its subterranean burrows into the open, and in every wood a mushroom town of bivouacs has sprung up over-night.  Here and there amateur gardeners have planted flower-beds before their tents; one of my corporals is nursing some radishes in an ammunition-box and talks crop prospects by the hour.  My troop-sergeant found two palm-plants in the ruins of a chateau glass-house, and now has them standing sentry at his bivouac entrance.  He sits between them after evening stables, smoking his pipe and fancying himself back in Zanzibar; he expects the coker-nuts along about August, he tells me.