is sergeants are trustworthy or not. Yet there is no
epidemic of suicide among draft-conducting officers, though there
very well might be. Great and unconquerable is the spirit of the
British dug-out officer.

The draft itself may have had a bad time too, especially in the
matter of cleaning up the ship; but then the draft does not have it
once a week. And the draft has not got to turn round and go straight
back again. And for the draft the business has the advantage of
novelty. It is exciting to land for the first time in France, to be
pursued by little boys who say "Souvenir!" and "Good night!" early in
the morning. And there is something about getting there at last,
after months of weary training, which must stir the most sluggish
imagination.

The draft is examined by the doctors. One way and another a doctor in
a base camp has a busy time of it. He begins at 6 a.m., diagnosing
the cases of the men who report sick. The hour at which it is
possible to report sick is fixed inconveniently early in order, it is
hoped, to discourage disease. Men who are not very bad may actually
prefer the usual parades and fatigues to reporting sick at 6 a.m. For
sickness is not even a sure way of escape. Doctors have a nasty trick
of awarding "medicine and duty" in doubtful cases, which is
distinctly more unpleasant than duty without medicine. From that on
the doctor is kept busy, till he drops off to sleep for half an hour
before dinner in the mess-room.

I thought at first that the doctors might have been spared the task
of examining incoming drafts. The men have all been passed fit at
home before they start, and it does not seem reasonable to suppose
that their constitutions have seriously deteriorated on the journey.
But the new examination is really necessary. Doctors, according to
the proverb, differ. They even seem to differ more widely than other
men. The home doctor for some reason takes an optimistic view of
human ailments, and is inclined to pass a man fit who will certainly
collapse when he gets up the line. The doctor in the base camp knows
that he will be abominably "strafed" if he sends "crocks" to the
front. He does not want them returned and left on his hands at the
base. So he picks the plainly unfit men out of the drafts, and, after
a tedious round of form filling, sends them back to England.

There was, for instance, Private Buggins, whose case interested me so
much that I should like very much to hear the end