sh on
Amiens, by the construction of new lines of defence, was no less than
62,000--two-thirds, nearly, of the whole British Army at Waterloo!

Then, when our counter-attack began, the task of the Labour men was
reversed. Now it was for them to go forward, well ahead of the
reserves, and some 1,000 yards ahead of the skilled transport troops
and the construction trains that were laying the line for which the
Labour men prepared the way. Death or wounds were always in the day's
risks, but the Labour men "held on." By this time there were 350,000
men under the Labour Directorate--a force about equal to our whole
Territorial and Regular Army before the war. They were a strange and
motley host!--95,000 British, 84,000 Chinese, 138,000 Prisoners of
War, 1,500 Cape Coloured, 4,000 West Indians, 11,000 South African
natives, 100 Fijians, 7,500 Egyptians, 1,500 Indians--so run the
principal items. The catalogue given of their labours covers all the
rough work of the war household. They were the handy men everywhere,
adding on occasion forestry and agriculture to their war-work, and the
British Labour battalions were, of course, the stiffening and
superintending element for the rest.

In the handling of the Coloured Labour Units there were naturally many
new and occasionally surprising things to be learnt by the British
soldiers directing them. A party of Nagas, for instance, were among
the Indian Labour Units. "They were savages from a country which has
only recently been brought thoroughly under British rule," writes an
officer of the A.G.'s department. "Their pastime is head-hunting, and
their 'uniform' when at home is that bestowed on them by Nature. They
were extraordinarily cheerful, willing workers, and gave no trouble at
all. The trouble of providing the special kind of food which in
general the natives of India require, was entirely absent in the case
of the Nagas. They have a strong liking for rats, and the only food
they object to is monkeys. A company of Nagas, about May, 1917, after
the advance at Arras in April, were sent up to somewhere near Boisleux
to bury dead horses. The dead horses were disposed of--but not by
burial. And in addition an Infantry Brigade in the neighbourhood had
soon to mourn the loss of all their dogs."

The Chinese were a constant source of amusement and interest to the
British. All that neatness and delicacy of finger which is shown in
Chinese art and hand-work, the infinite pains, the c