ourselves to the Commandant (for the Railway shed there had been turned
into an _Hôpital de Passage_, where the men waited on stretchers till
they were collected each morning by ambulances for the different
Hospitals), and ask him to be kind enough to furnish a _Bon pour un
bain_ (a bath pass)! When I first went to the Bureau at the gare and saw
this Commandant in his elegant tight-fitting navy blue uniform, with
pointed grey beard and general air of importance, I felt that to ask him
for a "bath ticket" was quite the last thing on earth! He saw my
hesitation, and in the most natural manner in the world said with a bow,
"Mademoiselle has probably come for _un bon_?" I assented gratefully,
was handed the pass and fled. It requires some courage to face four
officials in order to have a bath.

Arrived at the said train, one climbed up a step-ladder in to a truck
divided into four partitions, and Ziské, a deaf old Flamand, carried
buckets of boiling water from the engine and we added what cold we
wanted ourselves. You will therefore see that when anyone asked you what
you were doing in your free time that day and you said you were "going
to have a bath," it was understood that it meant the whole afternoon
would be taken up.

At first we noticed the French people seemed a little stiff in their
manner and rather on the defensive. We wondered for some time what could
be the reason, and chatting one day with Madame at the dug-out I
mentioned the fact to her.

"See you, Mademoiselle, it is like this," she explained, "you others,
the English, had this town many years ago, and these unlettered ones,
who read never the papers and know nothing, think you will take
possession of the town once again." Needless to say in time this