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PART SEVEN: ROUEN IN FEBRUARY I o ME TIME IN the second week of February I crossed to Havre on a detestable boat named Archangel As soon as the boat began to move I was aware of a sense of relief. It was no use worrying about the War now; I was in the Machine again, and all responsibility for my future was in the haphazard con- trol of whatever powers manipulated the British Ex- peditionary Force. Most of us felt like that, I imagine, and the experience was known as "being for it again". Apart from that, my only recollection of the crossing is that someone relieved me of my new trench-coat while I was asleep. At nine o'clock in the evening of the next day I re- ported myself at the 5th Infantry Base Depot at Rouen. The journey from London had lasted thirty- three hours (a detail which I record for the benefit of those who like slow-motion war-time details). The Base Camp was a couple of miles from the town, on the edge of a pine forest. In the office where I reported I was informed that I'd been posted to our Second Battalion; this gave me something definite to grumble about, for I wanted to go where I was already known, and the prospect of joining a strange battalion made me feel more homeless than ever. The 5th I.B.D. Adjutant advised me to draw some blankets; the 484