es you in a hall in the company of a dust pan and
brush and a pile of chairs pushed up in the corner--no welcome and no
flowers.

But in a moment there is a shuffle on the stairs, and a fat, buxom
woman, with a cheerful face and a blouse undone down the back, makes
her appearance. Oh yes, Messieurs les Officiers can have a bath--for two
francs, including a towel; and they can have breakfast--for three and a
half francs, including "ze English marmalade" and "un oeuf a la coque"
(which sets you to wondering whether she means a cock's egg, and, if so,
what sort of a thing it may be). "It is a nice bath," she tells you,
"and always full of Messieurs les Anglais, who forget all about the war
and only think of baths and of football. No, zere is only one bath, but
ze ozer officiers can wait," and she leads one of the party away into
the dim corridors and up dim staircases.

Breakfast and a wash work wonders, and you still keep cheerful when the
R.T.O. tells you at half-past nine that your camp is three miles away,
that you may not see your valise for days unless you take a "taxi," and
that there are only three "taxis" in the town. You wander about in
search of one during the whole morning, you find the three all hiding
away together in a side street, you bundle your valises into one, and
arrive at the camp just in time for lunch.

It is a strange life, that life at the Base--it is like life on an
"island" in a London thoroughfare, with the traffic streaming by on
either side. All day long there are men arriving to go to the front, all
day long there are men coming back on their way to England. For a week
you live on this "island," equipping men for drafts all the morning--for
most of them seem to have dropped part of their equipment into the sea
on the way across--and sitting in cafes in the evenings, drinking
strange mixtures of wines and syrups and soda water.

Then, one day, the Colonel sends for you. Your turn has come to set out
on that journey which may have no return. "You will proceed to the front
by the four o'clock train this afternoon," he says. "You are instructed
to conduct a party of 100 Northshire Highlanders, who are in 'S' Camp,
which is over there," and he waves his hand vaguely in the direction of
the typewriter in the corner of the room.

These are your instructions, and, after a prolonged hunt for "S" Camp,
you march off to the station at the head of a hundred Scotchmen, not one
of whom you can unders