This working ammunition-party of which I am in command is located in a little town well in the swirl of war, with the guns booming in the near distance most of the day and night. The "unit under my command," to put it in official language, lives in a field by the railhead. We have a pair of first-rate sergeants (R.H.A. and Infantry) and various very sound A.S.C. n.c.o.s in charge. Everything goes merrily as a wedding-bell. A gunner officer looks after the administrative welfare, pay, etc., of the artillerymen, but the discipline and command of the unit as a whole devolve on yours truly.
Next door to us across the line there is a concentration camp of Boche prisoners. They work on the railway all day shovelling stones in and out of trucks and lorries. To the eternal credit of England the treatment the prisoners receive, the food supplied to them, and the conditions under which they live are all of the very best. They have their being in tents within a barbed wire enclosure, not too crowded, and have excellent washing facilities (hot baths once a week), good food and conveniences for its preparation, including huge camp kettles for cooking—in short, every comfort possible. The work they do is hard, but no harder than that many of our own fellows have to do in the normal course of events. The considerate way in which our prisoners are treated is a great tribute to British chivalry. An old French soldier, watching them one day in their camp, said to me: "Vous les traitez trop bien ces salots." I replied: "Oui, mais c'est comme ça que l'Angleterre fait la guerre—avec les mains toujours propres."
I was grieved to hear of the death of Lieutenant Ivor Rees, of Llanelly. He was a great friend of Arthur and Tom. It is awful, there is no doubt about it, the sacrifice of these lives cut short in their prime, but they are not wasted; of that I am convinced. Besides:
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
Lloyd George's Eisteddfod speech was very stirring. I like that phrase, "The blinds of Britain are not drawn down." I see the papers are discussing Ministerial changes. I hope whatever happens that Lloyd George will remain at the War Office—it is the place where his personality is wanted. I am reading two interesting French books: Émile Faguet's "Short History of French Literature" and Dumas' "Vingt Ans Après." I wish you would send me Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," or one of Hegel's books. This evening I listened to Beethoven's "Egmont" overture—what a glorious work it is! Keep your eye for me on any books dealing with Beethoven or the immortal Richard.
September 2nd, 1916.
I am still in command of the ammunition working-party, and, entailing as it does real work and responsibility, am enjoying it hugely. All our men seem very happy. Their rations and living conditions are excellent. We have our own canteen, which does a great trade. It is a bad day if the canteen fails to take 250 francs, although it is open only from 12 to 2 and from 6 to 8 as per regulations.
We get our stuff from the nearest branch of the Expeditionary Force canteens, a military unit which does a colossal business at the back of the Front. It has depôts almost as large as those of the A.S.C. A sergeant-major of the nearest branch of the E.F.C. tells me that they calculate that at one depôt they take more money in a day than Harrod's Stores do in a week. The place is chock-a-block from morning to night, and outside there is always waiting a string of lorries, mess-carts, wagons, limbers, from all over the place. The part played by the E.F.C. in the war is by no means unimportant. It is a regular military unit, with officers, n.c.o.s and men (in khaki, of course), run under the authority of the War Office and subject to military law. Profits on sales go to the purchase of fresh stock, and I believe, in part, to the Military Canteens Fund at the War Office. The whole thing is run by the Director of Supply and Transport at the W.O., and is commanded out here by an A.S.C. major. It is difficult not to make profits on canteens; even in our comparatively small one, we constantly find ourselves saddled with more money than is required, and this although the prices charged to the men are the lowest possible. One great merit of the canteens is that they prevent the men from being "rooked" by unscrupulous civilians, who, I regret to say, are to be found in force in some of these French towns and villages.
The military canteen movement on its present huge scale has only been possible to us because of (1) the comparatively high rates of pay in the British Army; (2) the command of the sea, making transport from England simple and easy; (3) the inexhaustible reservoirs of supply and manufacture that exist within the British Empire. There can be no doubt about it that the path of the British soldier in this war has been made as easy as it is possible to make it—an incalculable advantage to a nation that has had to create a great voluntary Army in a comparatively short space of time. Whatever faults the military authorities may have committed in other directions, they have kept steadily in view the Napoleonic maxim, "An army moves on its stomach."
The Boche prisoners round about here work energetically. They must, I fancy, be amazed themselves at the manner in which they are treated—the abundance of food, the entire absence of rancour on our part, and the general conditions under which they work and live. Actually, they get their Sunday afternoons off. Some of them have been given a little plot of land close to the internment camp, where they are busy gardening in their leisure time. In the camp they have all sorts of work-tables and tools, and you often see some of them doing carpentering after their day's work is done. The prisoners stroll about the camp and its environs at will, and the men on guard are continually chatting and joking with them. The ration of the prisoners includes fresh meat and bread every day, and a supply of tobacco and cigarettes once a week. It is much to the credit of Britain that her captives in war should be treated with so much generosity. Don't let the Government abandon this policy of broad magnanimity because of the noisy clamour of armchair reprisalists at home. By the way, these Boche prisoners observe the rules of discipline even in their captivity, and when British or French officers pass by they stand respectfully to attention. Most of the prisoners are big chaps.