Leaves from a Field Note-Book | Page 8

a rush for it and we caught 'em just like's we was
terriers by an oat-rick; we had to be main quick. 'Twere like pitching
hay. And then three more, and then more. And none on us uttered a
word.
"An' when it wur done and we had claned our bay'nets in the straw,
Capt'n 'e said, 'Men, you ha' done your work as you ought to ha' done.'"
He paused for a moment. "They be bad fellows," he mused. "O Christ!
they be rotten bad. Twoads they be! I never reckon no good 'ull come
to men what abuses wimmen and childern. But I'm afeard they be
nation strong--there be so many on 'em."
His tale had the simplicity of an epic. But the telling of it had been too
much for him. Beads of perspiration glistened on his brow. I felt it was
time for me to go. I sought first to draw his mind away from the
contemplation of these tragic things.
"Are you married?" I asked. The eyes brightened in the flushed face.
"Yes, that I be, and I 'ave a little boy, he be a sprack little chap."

"And what are you going to make of him?"
"I'm gwine to bring un up to be a soldjer," he said solemnly. "To fight
them Germans," he added. He saw the great War in an endless
perspective of time; for him it had no end. "You will soon be home in
Wiltshire again," I said encouragingly. He mused. "Reckon the Sweet
Williams 'ull be out in the garden now; they do smell oncommon sweet.
And mother-o'-thousands on the wall. Oh-h-h." A spasm of pain
contracted his face. The nurse was hovering near and I saw my time
was up. "My dear fellow," I said lamely, "I fear you are in great pain."
"Ah!" he said, "but it wur worth it."
* * * * *
The next day I called to have news of him. The bed was empty. He was
dead.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] This story is here given as nearly as possible in the exact words of
the narrator.--J.H.M.

IV
THE BASE
If G.H.Q. is the brain of the Army, the Base is as certainly its heart. For
hence all the arteries of that organism draw their life, and on the systole
and diastole of the Base, on the contractions and dilatations of its
auricles and ventricles, the Army depends for its circulation. To and
from the Base come and go in endless tributaries men, horses, supplies,
and ordnance.
The Base feeds the Army, binds up its wounds, and repairs its wastage.
If you would get a glimpse of the feverish activities of the Base and
understand what it means to the Army, you should take up your

position on the bridge by the sluices that break the fall of the river into
the harbour, close to the quay, where the trawlers are nudging each
other at their moorings and the fishermen are shouting in the patois of
the littoral amid the creaking of blocks, the screaming of winches, and
the shrill challenge of the gulls. Stand where the Military Police are on
point duty and you will see a stream of Red Cross motor ambulances, a
trickle of base details, a string of invalided horses in charge of an
A.V.C. corporal, and a khaki-painted motor-bus crowded with drafts
for the Front. Big ocean liners, flying the Red Cross, lie at their
moorings, and lofty electric cranes gyrate noiselessly over supply ships
unloading their stores, while animated swarms of dockers in khaki pile
up a great ant-heap of sacks in the sheds with a passionless
concentration that seems like the workings of blind instinct. And here
are warehouses whose potentialities of wealth are like Mr. Thrale's
brewery--wheat, beef, fodder, and the four spices dear to the delicate
palates of the Indian contingent. Somewhere behind there is a park of
ammunition guarded like a harem. In the railway sidings are duplicate
supply trains, steam up, trucks sealed, and the A.S.C. officer on board
ready to start for rail-head with twenty-four hours' supplies. Beyond the
maze of "points" is moored the strangest of all rolling-stock, the
grey-coated armoured-train, within whose iron walls are domesticated
two amphibious petty officers darning their socks.
In huge offices improvised out of deal boarding Army Service Corps
officers are docketing stupendous files of way-bills, loading-tables, and
indents, what time the Railway Transport Officer is making up his train
of trucks for the corresponding supplies. The A.S.C. uses up more
stationery than all the departments in Whitehall, and its motto is litera
scripta manet--which has been explained by an A.S.C. sergeant,
instructing a class of potential officers, as meaning "Never do anything
without a written order, but, whatever you do, never write one." For an