My Major handled everything required for his division except water and ammunition.  He would have a train full of multifarious provender, and another train full of miscellanies—­from field-guns to field-kitchens—­with letters from wives and sweethearts in between.  And all these things came to him up the line of railway out of the sea simply because he asked for them and was ready to give a receipt for them.  He was not concerned with the magic underlying their appearance at his little rail-head; he only cared about the train being on time, and the lorries being in first-class running order.  He sprayed out in beneficent streams from his rail-head tons of stuff every day.  Every day he sent out two hundred and eighty bags of postal matter to the men beyond.  The polish on the metallic portions of his numerous motor-lorries was uncanny.  You might lift a bonnet and see the bright parts of the engine glittering like the brass of a yacht.  Dandyism of the Army Service Corps!

An important part of the organism of the rail-head is the Railway Construction Section Train.  Lines may have to be doubled.  The Railway Construction Section Train doubles them; it will make new railways at the rate of several miles a day; it is self-contained, being simultaneously a depot, a workshop, and a barracks.

Driving along a road you are liable to see rough signs nailed to trees, with such words on them as “Forage,” “Groceries,” “Meat,” “Bread,” etc.  Wait a little, and you may watch the Divisional Supply at a further stage.  A stream of motor-lorries—­one of the streams sprayed out from the rail-head—­will halt at those trees and unload, and the stuff which they unload will disappear like a dream and an illusion.  One moment the meat and the bread and all the succulences are there by the roadside, each by its proper tree, and the next they are gone, spirited away to camps and billets and trenches.  Proceed further, and you may have the luck to see the mutton which was frozen in New Zealand sizzling in an earth-oven in a field christened by the soldiers with some such name as Hampstead Heath.  The roasted mutton is a very fine and a very appetising sight.  But what quantities of it!  And what an antique way of cooking!

As regards the non-edible supplies, the engineer’s park will stir your imagination.  You can discern every device in connection with warfare. (To describe them might be indiscreet—­it would assuredly be too lengthy.) . . .  Telephones such as certainly you have never seen!  And helmets such as you have never seen!  Indeed, everything that a soldier in full work can require, except ammunition.