brought across the English Channel to maintain and reinforce
the ever-growing British Army, which holds now so important
a share of the fighting line in France. The ports of entry
are already overtaxed by the civil and military needs of
France herself. Imagine how difficult it is--and how the
difficulty grows daily with the steady increase of the
British Army--to receive, disembark, accommodate, and
forward the multitude of men and the masses of material!

You see the khaki in the French streets, the mingling
everywhere of French and English; but the ordinary visitor
can form no idea of the magnitude of this friendly invasion.
There is no formal delimitation of areas or spaces, in
docks, or town, or railways. But gradually the observer will
realise that the town is honeycombed with the temporary
locations of the British Army, which everywhere speckle the
map hanging in the office of the Garrison Quartermaster. And
let him further visit the place where the long lines of
reinforcement, training and hospital camps are installed on
open ground, and old England's mighty effort will scarcely
hide itself from the least intelligent. _Work, efficiency,
economy_ must be the watchwords of a base. Its functions may
not be magnificent--_but they are war_--and war is
impossible unless they are rightly carried out.

When we came back from the Loire in September, after our
temporary retreat, the British _personnel_ at this place
grew from 1,100 to 11,000 in a week. Now there are thousands
of troops always passing through, thousands of men in
hospital, thousands at work in the docks and storehouses.
And let any one who cares for horses go and look at the
Remount Depot and the Veterinary Hospitals. The whole
treatment of horses in this war has been revolutionised.
Look at the cheap, ingenious stables, the comfort produced
by the simplest means, the kind quiet handling; look at the
Convalescent Horse Depots, the operating theatres, and the
pharmacy stores in the Veterinary Hospitals.

As to the troops themselves, every Regiment has its own
lines, for its own reinforcements. Good food, clean cooking,
civilised dining-rooms, excellent sanitation--the base
provides them all. It provides, too, whatever else Tommy
Atkins wants, and _close a