ot in Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney,
Melbourne or Perth--no, nor in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington or
Auckland, did I meet specimens like unto these. The spirit of War has
breathed its fires into their hearts; the drill sergeant has taken
thought and has added one cubit to their stature.

D'Amade has just been to make me known to a couple of Frenchmen about to
join my Staff. They seem to be nice fellows. The French have been here
some days and they are getting on well. Hunter-Weston landed this
morning; his first batch of transports are in the harbour. I am to see
the French troops in four days' time; Hunter-Weston's 29th Division on
the fifth day. Neither Commander has yet worked out how long it will
take before he has reloaded his transports. They declare it takes three
times as long to repack a ship loaded at haphazard as it would have
taken to have loaded her on a system in the first instance. Six days per
ship is their notion of what they can do, but I trust to improve a bit
on that.

Hunter-Weston had written me a letter from Malta (just to hand) putting
it down in black and white that we have not a reasonable prospect of
success. He seemed keen and sanguine when we met and made no reference
to this letter: so it comes in now as rather a startler. But it is best
to have the black points thrust upon one's notice beforehand--so long
always as I keep it fixed in the back of my mind that there was never
yet a great thought or a great deed which was not cried down as
unreasonable before the fact by a number of reasonable people!

_30th March, 1915. Alexandria._ Have just dictated a long letter to Lord
K. in the course of which I have forced myself to say something which
may cause the great man annoyance. I feel it is up to me to risk that.
One thing--he knows I am not one of those rotters who ask for more than
they can possibly be given so that, if things go wrong, they may
complain of their tools. I have promised K. to help him by keeping my
demands down to bedrock necessities. I make no demand for ammunition on
the France and Flanders scale but--we must have _some_! There must be a
depot somewhere within hail. Here is the crucial para.:--

"I realise how hard up you must be for ammunition, but I hope the M.G.O.
will have by now put in hand the building up of some reserves at our
base in Alexandria. If our batteries or battalions now serving in France
run short, something, at a pinch, can always be scraped together