In another place the dixies and camp-cookers, all dented and rusty, are cleaned and re-soldered. Old petrol tins are made into trench braziers. Steel helmets recover their form, picks and shovels their handles, and all the iron that cannot be made use of is sent back to the foundry to be melted down for ammunition.
Over the door of this war factory might be inscribed the motto of Lavoisier, with a slight addition:—
"Here nothing new is made, but nothing old is wasted."
The science that is taught and practised is the science, hitherto too little known, of economy.
That is the reason why many men of the world (and others) should, like us, visit this base.
[CHAPTER VII]
"BROTHERS IN ARMS."
The Times, through the medium of its distinguished representative with the British Army, Mr. Robinson, has recently published a very laudatory and somewhat flattering article on the attitude of the French soldier and the civil population of France towards the British Expeditionary Force.
"It must not be forgotten," said the great journal of the metropolis, "that we are foreigners in France. Thus the spectacle of good-comradeship which we witness every day is altogether honourable to our French hosts."