Towards the Goal | Page 8

an
increased number of special schools--an Artillery Training School, an
Engineer Training School, a Lewis Gun School, a Gas School, with an
actual gas chamber for the training of men in the use of their gas
helmets,--and others, of which it is not possible to speak. "We have put
through half a million of reinforcements since you were here last." And
close upon two million rations were issued last month! The veterinary
accommodation has been much enlarged, and two Convalescent Horse
Depots have been added--(it is good indeed to see with what kindness
and thought the Army treats its horses!). But the most novel addition to
the camp has been a Fat Factory for the production of fat,--from which
comes the glycerine used in explosives--out of all the food refuse of the
camp. The fat produced by the system, here and in England, has already
provided glycerine _far millions of eighteen-pounder shells_; the
problem of camp refuse, always a desperate one, has been solved; and
as a commercial venture the factory makes 250 per cent. profit.
Undeterred by what we hear of the smells! we go off to see it, and the
enthusiastic manager explains the unsavoury processes by which the
bones and refuse of all the vast camp are boiled down into a white fat,
that looks almost eatable, but is meant, as a matter of fact, to feed not
men but shells. Nor is that the only contribution to the fighting line
which the factory makes. All the cotton waste of the hospitals, with
their twenty thousand beds--the old dressings and bandages--come here,
and after sterilisation and disinfection go to England for gun-cotton.
Was there ever a grimmer cycle than this, by which that which feeds,
and that which heals, becomes in the end that which kills! But let me
try to forget that side of it, and remember, rather, as we leave the smells
behind, that the calcined bones become artificial manure, and go back
again into the tortured fields of France, while other bye-products of the
factory help the peasants near to feed their pigs. And anything, however
small, that helps the peasants of France in this war, comforts one's
heart.
We climb up to the high ground of the camp for a general view before
we go on to G.H.Q. and I see it, as I saw it last year, spread under the

March sunshine, among the sand and the pines--a wonderful sight.
"Everything has grown, you see, except the staff!" says the Colonel,
smiling, as we shake hands. "But we rub along!"
Then we are in the motor again, and at last the new G.H.Q.--how
different from that I saw last year!--rises before us. We make our way
into the town, and presently the car stops for a minute before a building,
and while our officer goes within, we retreat into a side street to wait.
But my thoughts are busy. For that building, of which the side-front is
still visible, is the brain of the British Army in France, and on the men
who work there depend the fortunes of that distant line where our
brothers and sons are meeting face to face the horrors and foulnesses of
war. How many women whose hearts hang on the war, whose all is
there, in daily and nightly jeopardy, read the words "British
Headquarters" with an involuntary lift of soul, an invocation without
words! Yet scarcely half a dozen Englishwomen in this war will ever
see the actual spot. And here it is, under my eyes, the cold March sun
shining fitfully on it, the sentry at the door, the khaki figures passing in
and out. I picture to myself the rooms within, and the news arriving of
General Gough's advance on the Ancre, of that German retreat as to
which all Europe is speculating.
But we move on--to a quiet country house in a town garden--the
Headquarters Mess of the Intelligence Department. Here I find, among
our kind hosts, men already known to me from my visit of the year
before, men whose primary business it is to watch the enemy, who
know where every German regiment and German Commander are, who
through the aerial photography of our airmen are now acquainted with
every step of the German retreat, and have already the photographs of
his second line. All the information gathered from prisoners, and from
innumerable other sources, comes here; and the department has its eye
besides on everything that happens within the zone of our Armies in
France. For a woman to be received here is an exception--perhaps I
may say an honour--of which I am rather tremulously aware. Can I
make it worth while? But a little conversation with these earnest and
able men shows plainly that they have considered the matter