After refilling, the lorries either remain near the railhead or proceed towards the direction of the troops and park in a suitable position until the following day, when they go out in convoy and off-load their contents, returning immediately after doing so.
Most of the foregoing remarks apply to a Cavalry Divisional Supply Column. With an Infantry Division matters are somewhat different, there being only one echelon of lorries, which issue and are refilled on the same day. Moreover, an Infantry Divisional Supply Column is loaded with rations in bulk; a Cavalry Divisional Supply Column, as I have already explained, is loaded "by regiments."
The reason for the first of the above differences is not difficult to discover, for, infantry being slow-moving troops, the distance to be covered by road by the Supply Column is not great, and cannot increase rapidly, whereas with cavalry, the radius of mobility or action may be possibly ninety miles each way out and back to railhead, and thus a double establishment of vehicles is necessary. If the cavalry to be rationed are on the move, supplies cannot be delivered until a definite resting-point for the night has been reached, usually after dark. They are then delivered by supply lorries direct to units in their billets or bivouacs. With a Cavalry Division there is no horse train; obviously, horse-drawn wagons could not keep pace with advancing cavalry. On the latter presumption the "War Establishment" is entirely devised.
Ill-fed troops are worse than useless, and in the British Army no pains or expense are spared to enable the soldier's daily ration to be not only plentiful and of the best quality, but delivered to him with clock-work regularity and dispatch. The Army Council evidently believe in the Napoleonic maxim that "an army marches on its stomach." The British meat ration, nearly always —— frozen beef, and occasionally —— chilled mutton, is excellent in quality. It, of course, requires to be hung for a few days, when practicable—as Tommy puts it, "to get the frost out of it," or, in other words, to be slowly thawed; after that has been done, it satisfies the most fastidious or enormous appetites. During the summer months it was found that the long journey in a closed railway truck did not improve its quality, and for this reason it was for a time sent up in trucks specially built for the purpose and marked, "Insulated Meat Wagon. Viande gelée."
All the other rations are of equally good quality. The bacon, so much appreciated, especially in the trenches, where cooking facilities are not great, is of the best quality Irish. The butter, tinned dairy butter. The cheese, mostly Canadian Cheddar. The jam, at first of the proverbial plum and apple variety, was later varied by strawberry, apricot, marmalade, and occasionally by honey. As for the tea, one can taste worse in London drawing-rooms, and the bully beef, scorned perhaps to a certain extent owing to the fact that it in time becomes monotonous, is nevertheless the finest preserved meat procurable. The bread is all baked in the A.S.C. field ovens at the Base, and owing to the amount of moisture purposely left in it, does not readily become stale. After being kept a week, if a loaf is sprinkled with water and put into a hot oven for ten minutes or so it comes out as crisp as newly baked bread. One of the commissariat problems, which, however, has been solved satisfactorily, was the question of "Native meat," or the ration of meat for Indian troops serving in Europe. The solution has been found in the institution of "Native butcheries." A Native of high caste in India would, of course, not eat any meat that even the shadow of a European had passed over. In coming to France the Native troops have, however, been granted certain religious dispensations, not only with regard to food, but, in the case of Hindus, in being allowed to leave the boundaries of their own country. Nevertheless, their caste rights as to food are as strictly observed as the exigencies of active service allow. The goats and sheep, chiefly Corsican and Swiss, purchased for their consumption, are sent up in a truck to railhead alive, and are slaughtered by men of their own caste in a butchery arranged for the purpose, generally in a field or some open place in close proximity to the railhead. The Mohammedan will eat only goats or sheep slaughtered by having their throats cut, and the Hindu, by their being beheaded. The latter method is carried out in the abattoir by a Native butcher with the aid of a cavalry sword at one fell swoop, and of the two methods is certainly to be recommended as being the most rapid and instantaneous death. I need hardly add that the Native butchery is always looked on as an object of awe and interest, if not of excitement, by the French inhabitants, and none the less by English soldiers.
The Natives do not object to their meat being handled by English soldiers, or to it being brought to them in the same lorry which also perhaps carries British ration beef, although the cow is a sacred animal to the Hindu and in the form of beef is naturally distasteful. The only point is that the goat's meat or mutton intended for their consumption must not actually come into contact with the beef, and this is arranged for by a wooden barrier between the two, erected in the interior of the lorry. On one occasion, however, the native rations for a certain regiment had just been dumped on the side of the road, and were being checked by the Daffadar, or Native Quartermaster-Sergeant, when at a critical moment an old sow, followed by her litter, came out of a farm gate and innocently ran over the whole show. A lot of palaver followed amongst the Natives, and there was no alternative; they would not have these rations at any price, and back they had to be taken to be exchanged. The pig is, of course, abhorrent to the Mussulman. One story in connection with the rationing of the Indian Cavalry whilst in the trenches at Ypres in the summer of 1915 may be of interest. The cow being a sacred animal to the Hindu, it became necessary to replace the usual tins of bully beef by a suitable substitute. With this end in view, quantities of tins of preserved mutton were sent up for the consumption of Hindu personnel. The tins in which it was packed, however, unfortunately bore the trade mark of the packers, Messrs. Libby—a bull's head—and in consequence of this the Hindus would not have it that their contents could be anything but beef, until their own Native officers convinced them that such was not the case. It will be seen that the organization for rationing Native troops is such that they are able to be fed in accordance with the rites of their caste, surely a not unimportant factor.
Chapter V
THE MOTOR-LORRY CONVOY
Our duties continued daily, with one or two exceptions, in an unbroken monotony for the remainder of the winter, loading the supply lorries at railhead one day and taking them out in convoy the next, to deliver the supplies to the troops who were billeted in the surrounding villages.
What cold journeys those convoy jobs used to be too! The front seat of a lorry leading a convoy, on a frosty, snowy, windy or wet day, is no place for a joy ride, and the only alternative for a section officer, namely, a motor-bicycle on a muddy or dusty road, as the case may be, is not much better. The mud of the trenches in winter has become proverbial, but it is not confined to them: it exists on the roads behind the line as well. It must be seen to be believed! Take any good main country road, that for years has been used merely by a few farmers' carts and periodically perhaps by a small amount of motor-car traffic; suddenly start running over it several hundred heavily loaded motor-lorries, ambulances, general service wagons drawn by teams of four horses, not to mention sundry motor-cars, motor-bicycles, and several batteries of artillery; continue to do this every day for a few months, in winter for choice; let the heavens pour forth torrents of rain, fairly continuously day and night, as was the case during the winter months of 1914; let the road be made on a clay soil and ill-drained, perhaps not drained at all artificially—the one and only result in due course will be a road full of pot holes and ankle-deep with mud and slush. This is no exaggeration; it is exactly what has happened to the roads on which we have to travel behind the trenches. The only wonder is that they have stood such a severe test so well. In summer, of course, they are correspondingly dusty, and it is an open question which is the lesser of the two evils—to get oneself splashed from head to foot with mud, or almost choked with dust. The user of the roads that one pities most, though it must be admitted he appears to be perfectly happy and contented with his job, is the motor cyclist dispatch rider. Clad in leather overalls with map-case hanging from one shoulder, dispatch case from the other, and revolver attached to his belt, he dashes along the worst roads, frequently into the danger zone, wet or fine, day or night, winter or summer, at lightning speed, nevertheless finding time as he goes to salute any officer he may chance to meet or overtake. This he accomplishes by turning his head and eyes smartly in the direction of the officer to whom he is paying the compliment, at the same time proceeding at considerable speed in a direction at right angles to that towards which he has turned his head whilst saluting. Such courtesy surely deserves appreciation from the officer!