Waterloo Bridge and across the Strand, brought us to Euston just as the
boat-train was timed to start. In the importance of our new uniforms we
stopped it, of course, and rode joyfully from one end of the platform to
the other, much to the agitation of the guard, while I posed
delightfully against a bookstall to be photographed by a patriotic
governess.

Very grimy we sat down to a marvellous breakfast, and passed the time
reading magazines and discussing the length of the war. We put it at
from three to six weeks. At Holyhead we carefully took our bikes aboard,
and settled down to a cold voyage. We were all a trifle apprehensive at
our lack of escort, for then, you will remember, it had not yet been
proved how innocuous the German fleet is in our own seas.[1]

Ireland was a disappointment. Everybody was dirty and unfriendly,
staring at us with hostile eyes. Add Dublin grease, which beats the
Belgian, and a crusty garage proprietor who only after persuasion
supplied us with petrol, and you may be sure we were glad to see the
last of it. The road to Carlow was bad and bumpy. But the sunset was
fine, and we liked the little low Irish cottages in the twilight. When
it was quite dark we stopped at a town with a hill in it. One of our men
had a brick thrown at him as he rode in, and when we came to the inn we
didn't get a gracious word, and decided it was more pleasant not to be a
soldier in Ireland. The daughter of the house was pretty and passably
clean, but it was very grimly that she had led me through an immense
gaudy drawing-room disconsolate in dust wrappings, to a little room
where we could wash. She gave us an exiguous meal at an extortionate
charge, and refused to put more than two of us up; so, on the advice of
two gallivanting lancers who had escaped from the Curragh for some
supper, we called in the aid of the police, and were billeted