rs, so you stand a
good chance of seeing all the fun if with the M.T. My duty is to
make arrangements for translating the ration figures rendered
daily to me by the Cavalry Brigades into terms of meat, bread,
biscuit, forage, etc., and arrange for these to be loaded at
railhead on to the lorries; then, in company with the M.T.
officer of the day, to take these rations up to the units, at the
same time obtaining the next day's feeding strength from the
Brigade Supply Officers.

This particular M.T. column delivered rations in the front line
trenches back in 1914, and once a portion of it was captured by
the Boches and recaptured by the 18th Hussars.

The M.T. officers are a very efficient lot, and know their job
from A to Z. Among them is Captain Hugh Vivian, a member of the
famous firm of Vivian & Son, of Swansea and Landore, so near to
our ancestral home. He is O.C. to the section of lorries to which
I am attached--a most intellectual man of charming manners, who
has travelled all over Europe and speaks French and German
fluently. He is one of the ablest men I have met in the Army and
I find him one of the best of fellows. He may have to leave us
shortly, because his thorough knowledge of the metal trades has
marked him out to the authorities as a man invaluable for the
production of munitions at home.

You have to be with a Supply Column in order to get some idea of
the vast quantities of food that are sent up daily to the Front.
Never have I seen such quantities--innumerable quarters of meat,
tons of bully, crates of biscuits, and cheese, butter, jam,
sugar, tea galore. When you remember that all this food has been
transported across the Channel, and much of it previously
imported from foreign countries into England, you begin to
comprehend the value of sea-power.

I am told that the Cavalry Brigade have had to fix up a special
interpreter to assist in the requisitioning work since my
departure! "Verbum sat sapienti"! Why the authorities should give
a man nearly a year's training in one job and then shift him to
something else, without reference to his faculties, experience,
or wishes, I simply can't tell. Still, there it is, and we must
assume that they know best.

* * * * *

Early in July b