and depots.  It would take you days to get any idea of the huge quantities of stores, or of the new and ingenious means of space economy and quick distribution.  As to the Works Department—­camps and depots are put up “while you wait” by the R.E. officers and unskilled military labour.  Add to all this the armies of clerks, despatch riders, and motor-cyclists—­and the immense hospital personnel—­then, if you make any intelligible picture of it in your mind, you will have some idea of what bases like these mean.

Pondering these notes, it seemed to me that the only way to get some kind of “intelligible picture” in two short days was to examine something in detail, and the rest in general!  Accordingly, we spent a long Sunday morning in the Motor Transport Depot, which is the creation of Colonel B., and perhaps as good an example as one could find anywhere in France of the organising talent of the able British officer.

The depot opened in a theatre on the 13th of August, 1914.  “It began,” says Colonel B., “with a few balls of string and a bag of nails!” Its staff then consisted of 6 officers and 91 N.C.O.’s and men—­its permanent staff at present is about 500.  All the drivers of some 20,000 motor vehicles—­nearly 40,000 men—­are tested here and, if necessary, instructed before going up to the fighting lines; and the depot deals with 350 different types of vehicles.  In round figures 100,000 separate parts are now dealt with, stored, and arranged in the depot.  The system of records and accounts is extraordinarily perfect, and so ingenious that it seems to work itself.

Meanwhile Colonel B.’s relations with his army of chauffeurs, of whom about 1,000 are always housed on the premises, are exceedingly human and friendly in spite of the strictness of the army discipline.  Most of his men who are not married, the Colonel tells me, have found a “friend,” in the town, one or other of its trimly dressed girls, with whom the English mechanic “walks out,” on Sundays and holidays.  There are many engagements, and, as I gather, no misconduct.  Marriage is generally postponed till after the war, owing to the legal and other difficulties involved.  But marriage there will be when peace comes.  As to how the Englishman and the French girl communicate, there are amusing speculations, but little exact knowledge.  There can be small doubt, however, that a number of hybrid words perfectly understood by both sides are gradually coming into use, and if the war lasts much longer, a rough Esperanto will have grown up which may leave its mark on both languages.  The word “narpoo” is a case in point.  It is said to be originally a corruption of “il n’y a plus”—­the phrase which so often meets the Tommy foraging for eggs or milk or fruit.  At present it means anything from “done up” to “dead.”  Here is an instance of it, told me by a chaplain at the front.  He was billeted in a farm with a number of men, and a sergeant.  All the men, from the