Remember first that every man, every horse, every round of ammunition, every article of clothing and equipment, all the guns and vehicles, and nearly all the food have to be brought across the English Channel to maintain and reinforce the ever-growing British Army, which holds now so important a share of the fighting line in France.  The ports of entry are already overtaxed by the civil and military needs of France herself.  Imagine how difficult it is—­and how the difficulty grows daily with the steady increase of the British Army—­to receive, disembark, accommodate, and forward the multitude of men and the masses of material!

You see the khaki in the French streets, the mingling everywhere of French and English; but the ordinary visitor can form no idea of the magnitude of this friendly invasion.  There is no formal delimitation of areas or spaces, in docks, or town, or railways.  But gradually the observer will realise that the town is honeycombed with the temporary locations of the British Army, which everywhere speckle the map hanging in the office of the Garrison Quartermaster.  And let him further visit the place where the long lines of reinforcement, training and hospital camps are installed on open ground, and old England’s mighty effort will scarcely hide itself from the least intelligent. Work, efficiency, economy must be the watchwords of a base.  Its functions may not be magnificent—­but they are war—­and war is impossible unless they are rightly carried out.

When we came back from the Loire in September, after our temporary retreat, the British personnel at this place grew from 1,100 to 11,000 in a week.  Now there are thousands of troops always passing through, thousands of men in hospital, thousands at work in the docks and storehouses.  And let any one who cares for horses go and look at the Remount Depot and the Veterinary Hospitals.  The whole treatment of horses in this war has been revolutionised.  Look at the cheap, ingenious stables, the comfort produced by the simplest means, the kind quiet handling; look at the Convalescent Horse Depots, the operating theatres, and the pharmacy stores in the Veterinary Hospitals.

As to the troops themselves, every Regiment has its own lines, for its own reinforcements.  Good food, clean cooking, civilised dining-rooms, excellent sanitation—­the base provides them all.  It provides, too, whatever else Tommy Atkins wants, and close at hand; wet and dry canteens, libraries, recreation huts, tea and coffee huts, palatial cinemas, concerts.  And what are the results?  Excellent behaviour; excellent relations between the British soldier and the French inhabitants; absence of all serious crime.

Then look at the docks.  You will see there armies of labourers, and long lines of ships discharging horses, timber, rations, fodder, coal, coke, petrol.  Or at the stores