The road-signs--admonitory, hortatory, prohibitive--are raised at very frequent intervals. Military routes behind the lines are in a state of continual flux--to such a degree that road-maps are not only useless, but misleading, to drivers of vehicles. Their best course is to ignore the map, watch the road-directions as they are approached, and use their horse-sense. Signs are quite explicit: "Closed to lorries and ambulances"; "Closed to traffic in this direction" (arrowhead). The distance and direction of every village, however small, is put up with a clearness that excludes the possibility of error. The location of every ammunition-dump, supply-dump, railhead, camping-ground, billeting area, watering-place, intelligence Headquarters, motor-tyre press (an institution much in demand), is indicated very exactly. Most other signs are designed to regulate speed: "Maximum speed through village ---- for lorries and ambulances, ---- for light tractors, ---- for cars"; "Danger: cross-roads"; "Lorry-park; slow down"; "Go slow past aerodrome to avoid injuring engines through dust." (Can you conceive British administration in the Army giving the reason, thus, for an order?)
Some French signs persist: _Attention aux trains._
Some signs are not official: "Level crossing ahead: keep your blood-shot eyes open."
The village streets show signs that have no reference to speed. Most estaminets publish "English Stout"; "Good beer 3d., best beer 4d."; "Officers' horses, 10"; "Cellar, 50"--_i.e._, we have a cellar that will billet fifty men. The villages are very quiet and old-time--grey and yellow walls abutting directly on the roads (footpaths are unknown); thatch or slate roofs; low windows from which, sitting, your feet would touch road; tortuous streets; plentiful girl and women denizens; a wayside Calvary on the outskirts; a church spire rising somewhere from the roofs; a preponderance of taverns, estaminets, cafés, and sweet-shops in the chief street.
_Wednesday, --th._--I got some notion this morning of life on the ambulance trains. They move between railhead and the bases with the ebb and flow of the offensive tide. After their load is discharged to a base they garage at a siding erected in this station for the purpose, and await orders. They may rest three days or three hours. Sisters and M.O.'s have lived on the same train--some of them--for twelve or fifteen months, but are too busy to be mutually bored. At the garage you will see them dismounted from the train taking their lunch among the hay-ricks in the harvested field beside the line. An orderly will alight from the train and race across the field, and you'll see the party rise, hastily pitch their utensils incontinently into a rug, and climb aboard as the train steams out. The order has come to move up again and "take on." ... This is one aspect of the state of flux in which the world behind the lines stands day and night, month after month.