The food for the millions of men in France is concentrated at what we may call the Great Base, and from there it is distributed to the different army corps.  In each army corps there are two or more divisions.  In a division there are three infantry and three artillery brigades, three field companies of engineers, three field ambulances and details.  In each infantry brigade are four battalions and in each artillery four batteries.  To one company are four platoons, and about seventy men to a platoon.

Each body of men as I have named them is really a separate and distinct unit in itself, but cooperating with all others.  The food from the base is brought to the army corps by rail, and is distributed to the divisional headquarters by divisional transports which are operated by the Army Service Corps or the Mechanical Transport.  From the divisional headquarters the next step is to the brigades, and brigade transports collect the food and take it another few miles nearer to the boys.

Battalion transport wagons then bring the food and other supplies down to battalion headquarters.  At these headquarters are the quartermaster sergeants of each company, and they, with their staff, during the daytime pack up and get ready for distribution supplies for each separate platoon.  At night the company wagons, already packed, are drawn up as close to the trenches as conditions will permit.  If the country is too torn with shells to permit the use of horses, men will drag them.

I have seen these wagons sometimes within five hundred yards of the front line trenches, and again ration parties may have to crawl back a mile before meeting them.  It all depends on a number of circumstances.  On a moonlight night it is not possible to come so close as on a dark night.  In rain the wagons may sink into mud-holes, or in badly shelled areas there is danger of their turning over into a hole.  Everything depends on conditions and the good judgment of the man in charge.

[Illustration:  (C)_Famous Players—­Lasky Corporation.  Scene from the Photo-Play_

THE HUN COMES TO TOWN.]

Each evening from each section, and there are four sections to a platoon, the corporal or sergeant in command will detail a couple of men for ration party.  Ration party is no pleasant job; as Tommy terms it, it is “one of the rottenest ever.”

[Illustration:  (C)_Famous Players—­Lasky Corporation.  Scene from the Photo-Play_

“WHO’S THE GIRL, PEAT?”]

The two unhappy boys will crawl out as soon as it is dark.  They reach the supply wagon, or it may be only a dump of goods.  There they will find the quartermaster in charge, in all likelihood.  To him they tell their platoon number—­Number Sixteen Platoon, Section Four, perhaps—­and the quartermaster will hand them the rations.  One man will get half a dozen parcels, maybe more.  His comrade never offers to relieve him of any—­to the comrade there is designated a higher duty.  The quartermaster takes up with care and hands with tenderness to the second man a jar, or possibly a jug.