VISIT FROM COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

not going very well here, sir. I think you'd be well
advised to look into them." "We English, like every
other nation, have our faults, but I think we can
face the truth. . . . And we like being able to tell
it. ... If one of our officers has something to
complain of, hell let you know with the same
candour. And then it is up to you to remember that
you are liaison officers and that you must judge of
the situation with complete impartiality. A thing
said in good time is never dangerous/

Then followed a field exercise. General Gort
seemed pleased with it. Never does the Commander-
in-Chief look happier than when he can run over
difficult ground, jumping the ditches and negotiating
the barbed wire. With his elbows tucked into his
ribs and his steel helmet cleaving the wind, he moves
too fast for his officers to keep up with him. 'Every
inch a soldier/ they say. That day, at the end of the
little meal that came after the exercise, the mayor of
the locality, who had been present, said as he took
leave of the Commander-in- Chief:

Tm very glad to have met you, General, because
now Fve seen you I know you're a good man.'

And because it was simple, sincere, and true, this
little speech, which I was perhaps the only one to
overhear, must have brought the General very real
pleasure.

135