We have spoken of the vast work going on in the thirty huts conducted by 167 workers in this single base camp.  Let us now pass into a typical center and observe the work a little more in detail.  For our first illustration, let us take the Y M C A hut in the Convalescent Camp.  We select this because it is the model of the new huts for the American army which are now being constructed.  It is a moving sight simply to step inside its doors.  Here are two parallel structures of simple pine boards, each 120 by 30 feet.  They may be used separately, in eight different departments, including the lecture hall which will seat 500, or with the partitions raised they may be thrown into one large audience hall, holding 1,200 men.

A glance at the crowd within, or at the great city of white tents without, shows that even this building is utterly inadequate for this convalescent camp holding 4,000 men.  It is a center for a dozen surrounding hospitals, each containing from 1,000 to 4,000 patients.  As the men are cured in these hospitals they are sent up to the Convalescent Camp to be made fit to return to the trenches.  It is worth remembering that every one of these 4,000 patients is a wounded man, all of whom have seen service and suffering.

Let us enter first of all the large social hall.  Several hundred men are seated at the tables, playing games or chatting over a cup of tea.  At one end is the counter, where three women and five men take their turn serving during the day and evening.  Two or three thousand of these men will pour in every day this winter.  They will stand in a long queue filing by the counter for more than two hours.  Here are large urns, each holding ten gallons of tea.  Cup after cup is rapidly pushed across the counter without turning off the tap; as 160 men are served in ten minutes, and there is no stop save to place a fresh urn full of tea.  As fast as the workers can move, not only hot tea and coffee, but bread and biscuits, cake and chocolate, tobacco, matches, candles, soap, bachelor buttons are furnished, and every other need of the soldier is supplied.  The aim is to meet his every demand, so that he will not have to go into the city to places of temptation and evil resorts.

While these men are being served or are seated in the social room, meetings and lectures are conducted at the same time on the other side of the partition in the audience hall, which is occupied several times a day, and is used for social purposes between the meetings.  We now pass into the lounge, which is filled with men, busy at their games.  Next is the Quiet Room, where no talking or writing is allowed.  Men come into this room for quiet meetings or private prayer, and here small group prayer meetings and Bible classes are held.

Just outside the hut is a wide wooden platform which accommodates several hundred men.  There nearly a dozen different games are in full swing, all at the same time.  Each one is designed to help the patient recover his health.  Here are badminton, tennis, volley ball, indoor baseball, quoits, deck billiards, bagatelle, ping-pong, and other games.  The front of this platform forms a grandstand for the cricket field beyond.