Corporal Newsham, a British Press despatch rider, studying a map on his motorcycle at Rollancourt in northern France during the First World War. Blocked EN ROUTE by the state of the roads: Puzzling out an alternative way. The general thaw and break-up of the frost on the Western Front not only made the going more difficult than usual for despatch riders on motor bikes, but in some places the roads were entirely under water, or had become bogged with deep mire, and the cyclist orderlies are in consequence liable to find themselves held up, out of the way points and compelled to puzzle a map that each man carries, and find some other route, in the shortest time.