_November 16._

[Sidenote: THE OTHER SQUADRONS ARRIVE]

To-day, by some amazing fluke, there's a lull. One squadron has gone.
Sir John is on his way down. Julian starts early next week, and Gerald a
few days later. So within a fortnight we shall all be together. Which
will be good.

Some infantry came in from the line to-day. Oh ye gods! the British
infantry! No rewards, honours, no fame, can ever be enough for them. We
have not yet gone through what they have to go through, but we have been
in and out amongst them all the time, and we know. Thank goodness this
spell of dry weather seems to have come for a few days at least. Cold at
night is nothing. It's wet at night that just kills men right and left.
Alan died yesterday morning. Died of exposure. He caught a chill while
we were up in front, and then got much worse, and it finally developed
into peritonitis and pneumonia. And now he, too, is dead. We were all
very fond of Alan.

Death is such a little thing. A change of air--no more. Death is the
last day of Term, the last day of the Year. Regret? That's because we
don't understand, quite.


_November 17._

I sent you off another beastly little scrap of paper to-day, because it