The distribution of food to an army, even in peace and under the best conditions, is a very complicated and difficult undertaking.  Provisions are shipped from the interior to the important railway centers, which serve as huge army depots and form the basis from which the different army corps draw their provisions and from which they are constantly replenished.  They in turn supply the divisions and brigades wherefrom the regiments and battalions draw their provisions.  So it is seen that the great aorta which leads from the interior to the big depots slowly subdivides itself into smaller arteries and feeders until they reach the ultimate destination, the extreme front.

This distribution of food had now become a formidable task, in consequence of the unforeseen movements and diversions which were forced upon us by the unexpected developments of the battle; and it often happened that food supplies intended for a certain detachment would reach their destination only after the departure of that detachment.

My platoon had by this time shrunk from fifty-five men to about thirty-four, but those remaining had become very hardened, efficient, and fit.  It is astonishing how quickly the human organism adjusts itself, if need be, to the most difficult circumstances.  So far as I was concerned, for instance, I adapted myself to the new life without any trouble at all, responding to the unusual demands upon me automatically, as it were.  My rather impaired eyesight improved in the open, with only wide distances to look at.  I found that my muscles served me better than ever before.  I leaped and ran and supported fatigue that would have appalled me under other circumstances.  In the field all neurotic symptoms seem to disappear as by magic, and one’s whole system is charged with energy and vitality.  Perhaps this is due to the open-air life with its simplified standards, freed from all the complex exigencies of society’s laws, and unhampered by conventionalities, as well as to the constant throb of excitement, caused by the activity, the adventure, and the uncertainty of fate.

The very massing together of so many individuals, with every will merged into one that strives with gigantic effort toward a common end, and the consequent simplicity and directness of all purpose, seem to release and unhinge all the primitive, aboriginal forces stored in the human soul, and tend to create the indescribable atmosphere of exultation which envelopes everything and everybody as with a magic cloak.

It is extraordinary how quickly suggestions of luxury, culture, refinement, in fact all the gentler aspects of life, which one had considered to be an integral part of one’s life are quickly forgotten, and, more than that, not even missed.  Centuries drop from one, and one becomes a primeval man, nearing the cave-dweller in an incredibly short time.  For twenty-one days I went without taking off my clothes, sleeping on wet grass or in mud, or in the