“I have seen him!” After the Commander-in-Chief there are two other outstanding and separately existing notabilities in connection with the General Staff.  One is the Quartermaster-General, who superintends the supply of all material; and the other is the Adjutant-General, who superintends the supply of men.  With the latter is that formidable instrument of authority, the Grand Provost Marshal, who superintends behaviour and has the power of life and death.  Each of these has his Staff, and each is housed similarly to the Commander-in-Chief.  Then each Army (for there is more than one army functioning as a distinct entity)—­each Army has its Commander with his Staff.  And each Corps of each Army has its Commander with his Staff.  And each Division of each Corps of each Army has its Commander with his Staff.  And each Brigade of each Division of each Corps of each Army has its Commander with his Staff; but though I met several Brigadier-Generals, I never saw one at his head-quarters with his Staff.  I somehow could not penetrate lower than the entity of a Division.  I lunched, had tea, and dined at the headquarters of various of these Staffs, with a General as host.  They were all admirably housed, and their outward circumstances showed a marked similarity.  The most memorable thing about them was their unending industry.

“You have a beautiful garden,” I said to one General.

“Yes,” he said.  “I have never been into it.”

He told me that he rose at six and went to bed at midnight.

As soon as coffee is over after dinner, and before cigars are over, the General will say: 

“I don’t wish to seem inhospitable, but------”

And a few minutes later you may see a large lighted limousine moving off into the night, bearing Staff officers to their offices for the evening seance of work which ends at twelve o’clock or thereabouts.

The complexity and volume of work which goes on at even a Divisional Headquarters, having dominion over about twenty thousand full-grown males, may be imagined; and that the bulk of such work is of a business nature, including much tiresome routine, is certain.  Of the strictly military labours of Headquarters, that which most agreeably strikes the civilian is the photography and the map-work.  I saw thousands of maps.  I inspected thick files of maps all showing the same square of country under different military conditions at different dates.  And I learnt that special maps are regularly circulated among all field officers.

The fitting-out and repairing sheds of the Royal Flying Corps were superb and complete constructions, at once practical and very elegant.  I visited them in the midst of a storm.  The equipment was prodigious; the output was prodigious; the organisation was scientific; and the staff was both congenial and impressive.  When one sees these birdcages full of birds and comprehends the spirit of flight, one is less surprised at the unimaginable feats which are daily performed over there in the sky northwards and eastwards.  I saw a man who flew over Ghent twice a week with the regularity of a train.  He had never been seriously hit.  These airmen have a curious physical advantage.  The noise of their own engine, it is said, prevents them from hearing the explosions of the shrapnel aimed at them.